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."

Comments

Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

They clearly overestimate the deterministic nature of the average social network user.

Re:Oh really?

[Narcocide]

Clearly they have yet to realize that political unrest spreads itself. Facebook just makes it faster.

Re:Oh really?

[erroneus]

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.

Re:Oh really?

[zonky]

Rubbish. Facebook has spread a generation of pointless twits who think that joining a meaningless group that they've forgotten about 15 minutes later is in anyway meaningful, useful or has any purpose.

Re:Oh really?

[betterunixthanunix]

To be fair, they were twits beforehand, who thought that signing petitions they would forget about 15 minutes later was fighting for some cause.

Re:Oh really?

[flyneye]

What I see is that China is going to use this as a twofold purpose. First, blaming the U.S. government for something clearly published by individual citizens, this will serve as a negotiating point later, the Chinese don't believe this, they are just adjusting the situation to suit their purpose. Later on in negotiations they can use this in the same way as someone saying " talk to the palm of my hand, buddy"
            Second this is a good reason to censor facebook and all the other networking sites that bat around ideas like freedom, individuality, countries that the people run the government instead of the Chinese ass backward way of government enslaving people.
        You see our western ways look delicious to the poor Chinaman, but that stands in direct opposition to them remaining pliable to the current government milking their lives for a greed profit. You see China isn't so much a country to be respected and negotiated with. It is a business, The Communist party are the owners, the government is the managerial layer and the people are of course the disposable labor.
        So why we treat them with any respect is beyond me. I'd just as soon embargo any trade and call them suckers for loaning us money and cut off ties till the people finally overthrow and kill the Communists dead Dead DEAD.
      But don't listen to me. I'm just common sensical like that.

Re:Oh really?

[Mikkeles]

'The purpose of government is to serve society in a way that keeps it from destroying itself.'

I would rephrase that as: The purpose of government is to serve people in a way that keeps them from destroying each other; in that any social institutions should be present for the benefit of people.
Otherwise, it's just replacement of government with society as the raison d'etre for tyranny.

Re:Oh really?

[Sulphur]

A Beowulf cluster of non-deterministic users who operate by message passing. Can they run ...

Re:Oh really?

[SystemicPlural]

I recognize what raw human desire, greed and ambition can drive people to do -- anything.

Human psychology is much more complex than that. The reason it tends towards this at the moment is very much a part of the environment of the social structure we find ourselves in. For example, if you look at many tribal systems, you find that people tend to be much more co-operative, with a gift economy being the main means of exchange of value.

Re:Oh really?

[EEPROMS]

Most Chinese know the government is full of it and take anything said with a grain of salt. The issue for the chines communist party (an oxymoron in itself) is that they haven't grasped that public hearsay without "truth" can be just as dangerous as the actual truth as embarrassing as it may. Right now the Chinese Government have over 500 million citizens who earn less than US$2 a day (higher number than India). So the poor in China not only feel like they are being left behind but unlike the poor in India also feel like they have no say in their futures. Then add in the chinese bureaucratic arrogance (imagine officials who cant be voted out, or reported in public) and you now have a powder keg just waiting for it to be lit. Yes the Chinese communist party will like a children try and plug the ever rising dam of truth with poorly implemented fixes like todays. Unfortunately the truth is patient and immortal and sooner or later it will start to spill over the poorly managed and built dam of denial and bury its makers. So for all those officials out there, lie and cheat all you want but history sooner or later will destroy any goodness that your short life produced.

Re:Oh really?

[dwater]

> who earn less than US$2 a day

Isn't this statement meaningless unless it's adjusted for cost of living?

For example, (IIRC) in Beijing, it can[1] cost 0.4rmb to travel from one side of the city to the other. That's about 0.06 USD. Furthermore, Beijing is not a small city.

[1] Some buses charge a fixed fee no matter how far you travel - others charge depending on how far you travel.

Re:Oh really?

[theghost]

From the Chinese govt's viewpoint, the US govt failed to squash anti-Chinese govt sentiments, therefore it is responsible for those sentiments. It's how they operate and how they expect the rest of the world to work as well.

To really engage them, you have to be able to understand the other side's point of view. Contrary to what some conservatives would say (esp regarding terrorism), understanding someone's motivation is not the same as agreeing with them.

Re:Oh really?

[divisionbyzero]

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.

While I agree with you you do realize that this is a very Western viewpoint, right? I'm not pleading cultural relativism. I'm just saying that in some Eastern countries it is patently obvious that the family has more value than the individual (because it continues to persist long after the individual passes away) and by extension society as an uber-family also has more value than the individual. Now all of that being said it's not like individualism doesn't exist. It's just a matter of emphasis but that difference of emphasis can justify many things including censorship.

Re:Oh really?

[WNight]

I see one mind wishing to silence another mind. It just can't work that way... and it doesn't.

While I agree with you you do realize that this is a very Western viewpoint, right?

No, it's a very non-relative truth.

One mind wishing to silence another. True.
China's denial of what it means to be human. True - they wouldn't be censoring if people weren't choosing to talk.
"Cannot work." True - if only because we need to stop them to keep it from working.

justify many things including censorship.

Bringing up their justifications would be like someone trying to explain "think of the kids" based censorship as partly reasonable - if only to us - because we hold children in high regard. Not that we don't, but it's totally unrelated to the power grab it's used to justify.

Re:Oh really?

[EEPROMS]

Actually a ton of wheat in China is the same as in the US so your theory doesn't work on all levels, the same goes for commodities and electronics products (A good PC motherboard actually costs more in China than the USA). Yes there are some things cheaper in china like locally grown foods (not much cheaper actually) or poor copies of western goods but that wont hide the fact that the poor are being left behind. The comparison that I am trying to draw attention to in my post (poverty aside) is the difference between "India" who are a democracy and China who are not. Being poor is bad enough but when one feels like they are being left behind as the difference between the poor and rich grow ever wider to also have to deal with corrupt and arrogant officials (down side to not having elected officials) can only lead to resentment. Although India's poor are still a big problem (less than China though) they at least have a say in what their officials can and cant do thus there is a way for them to let of steam publically (or as Americans say "feel empowered").

Re:Oh really?

[dwater]

> so your theory doesn't work on all levels

It's not my theory. Heck, it's not even a theory - it's plain common sense. You can't even meaningfully compare income between states in the USA without also considering the differing cost of living.

I don't know what your point was because I stopped reading at the nonsense statement.

Also, I have it on good authority that officials *are* elected. From what I'm told, they're elected on a regional basis, and those officials vote on a representative for a wider region - I guess until you get to the top. I don't know who gets to vote, but I personally know people who do. I would guess you have to be a member of the communist party or something like that. I guess that precludes 'poor' people ('justification' is probably something to do with lack of education) and so not particularly relevant to this discussion; and anyway, a lot depends on the details that I don't know...I wouldn't mind knowing, but I don't find anything on the internet about it.

I can't make any comment on India since I've never lived there, but I have lived in the USA and China (in rural areas and cities) and can categorically say that it costs significantly less to live in China than in the USA. Sure, there are some goods that cost more in China than in the USA, but they're generally not necessary for living (high quality electronics and cars, for example) and so (IMO) are irrelevant when comparing the income of the poor.

> let of steam

off

Re:Oh really?

[divisionbyzero]

I see one mind wishing to silence another mind. It just can't work that way... and it doesn't.

While I agree with you you do realize that this is a very Western viewpoint, right?

No, it's a very non-relative truth.

One mind wishing to silence another. True.
China's denial of what it means to be human. True - they wouldn't be censoring if people weren't choosing to talk.
"Cannot work." True - if only because we need to stop them to keep it from working.

Your definition of human is based on a very modern set of Western, specifically European, ideas about human nature. It's certainly not "relative" where relative means any set of ideas are legitimate because all ideas are equal and arbitrary but it is "relative" in the sense that emphasis is placed on certain ideas because of their historical trajectory. I'm not suggesting the ideas are wrong, nor am I pleading cultural relativism (as I explicitly stated and you completely ignored). I'm trying to suggest why there is such a difference between the cultures and suggesting that bridging that gap will be more helpful than some muscular assertiveness about the absolute truth of individual liberty (that while true is not helpful and just leads to a cultural pissing contest).

justify many things including censorship.

Bringing up their justifications would be like someone trying to explain "think of the kids" based censorship as partly reasonable - if only to us - because we hold children in high regard. Not that we don't, but it's totally unrelated to the power grab it's used to justify.

Agreed. But "think of the children" works here. And I was describing why "the need for a harmonious society" works in China.

I'm trying to explain why people think what they think because that's how you convince them to think otherwise. I'm not trying to justify anything. So, get off your freakin' high horse and pay attention.

Re:Oh really?

[WNight]

Your definition of human is based on a very modern set of Western, specifically European, ideas about human nature.

No. It is tautological and thus universal. Human nature is as humans do.

Humans obviously wish to speak or the government would not need to censor them.

nor am I pleading cultural relativism (as I explicitly stated and you completely ignored)

Yeah, I saw that. I was pointing out the errors in the "that's a western viewpoint", not suggesting that you thought the opposite viewpoint was right.

I'm not trying to justify anything. So, get off your freakin' high horse and pay attention.

I know, chill. But you are legitimizing it by discussing it as being anything other than political spin.

But "think of the children" works here. And I was describing why "the need for a harmonious society" works in China.

And I was saying that Think-of-the-Children does not work here - or at least while to does it's not because of any special liking for the children. It's not a magical phrase, it's the one were given endlessly in hope it'll become magic. It only works when people properly panic and stop thinking about the reason.

A Chinese person would have no trouble understanding our incredible TotC panic - just tell them the first person to stop pretending to panic gets blamed. It's just the hate-topic of the week.

I'm trying to explain why people think what they think

You don't know "they" think what you say anymore than you know a North American is actually thinking of the children. To assume that there is a Chinese mindset is silly. To assume it's the one the government is pushing is sillier.

because that's how you convince them to think otherwise.

That'd only be if you were debating them on the topic of "is family special". If you're discussing political issues you won't make any headway until you realize that the stated reason is not the real one.

Re:Oh really?

[divisionbyzero]

Your definition of human is based on a very modern set of Western, specifically European, ideas about human nature.

No. It is tautological and thus universal. Human nature is as humans do.

Humans obviously wish to speak or the government would not need to censor them.

There are several confusions here. I think you mean performative, not tautological. Tautologies are *not* universal. They are highly specific to a given formal system. If it were tautology, it would also be trivial.

In any case if the meaning of human is performative, as you suggest, then it would undercut the original point because the claim was that censorship is against human nature but humans also tolerate censorship and thus tolerating censorship must be a part of human nature; thus there is no reason to prefer one option over the other.

nor am I pleading cultural relativism (as I explicitly stated and you completely ignored)

Yeah, I saw that. I was pointing out the errors in the "that's a western viewpoint", not suggesting that you thought the opposite viewpoint was right.

As I said it's a matter of emphasis, not exclusivity.

I'm not trying to justify anything. So, get off your freakin' high horse and pay attention.

I know, chill. But you are legitimizing it by discussing it as being anything other than political spin.

I'm not legitimizing anything. I'm trying to show why the political spin works. The political spin wouldn't be deployed as political spin unless it works. Political spin serves internal as well as external purposes.

But "think of the children" works here. And I was describing why "the need for a harmonious society" works in China.

And I was saying that Think-of-the-Children does not work here - or at least while to does it's not because of any special liking for the children. It's not a magical phrase, it's the one were given endlessly in hope it'll become magic. It only works when people properly panic and stop thinking about the reason.

A Chinese person would have no trouble understanding our incredible TotC panic - just tell them the first person to stop pretending to panic gets blamed. It's just the hate-topic of the week.

I just don't buy it. That explanation seems far more artificial than the fact that naive and well-intentioned people are being exploited for their support because they do believe it will help preserve the innocence of children.

I'm trying to explain why people think what they think

You don't know "they" think what you say anymore than you know a North American is actually thinking of the children. To assume that there is a Chinese mindset is silly. To assume it's the one the government is pushing is sillier.

As far as I can tell, all of that is baseless assertion. I can certainly know that "think of the children" is the motivation for some Americans. All I need to do is ask them. Assuming that there is a Chinese mindset is hardly controversial. Every culture has norms. I'm not sure why you would assume otherwise.

because that's how you convince them to think otherwise.

That'd only be if you were debating them on the topic of "is family special". If you're discussing political issues you won't make any headway until you realize that the stated reason is not the real one.

The real one is of course about control. What I'm suggesting is why the fake one works. And you are wrong. You need to understand why the fake one works in order to start to diffuse it. The real reason is blatantly obvious and trivial.

If you are making the trivial point that censorship is *really* about control, well, that's hard to argue with but so wha

Re:Oh really?

[WNight]

There are several confusions here. I think you mean performative, not tautological. Tautologies are *not* universal. They are highly specific to a given formal system. If it were tautology, it would also be trivial.

The "What X does is the 'X nature'" statement is universal, because it is tautological. It offers no predictive power and thus is a trivial statement, but all I was saying is that it's not a subjective Western viewpoint. The Chinese government is going against human nature. (Not to say they aren't also following their own human nature...)

A Chinese person would have no trouble understanding our incredible TotC panic - just tell them the first person to stop pretending to panic gets blamed. It's just the hate-topic of the week.

I just don't buy it. That explanation seems far more artificial than the fact that naive and well-intentioned people are being exploited for their support because they do believe it will help preserve the innocence of children.

Did I say they weren't being manipulated? The USA actually had cause to worry about some communists in the 50s too... The best panics are always born out of a core of something real. Eurasia has to exist, or at least been rumored to before today, before you can whip up a really good hate about it.

I can certainly know that "think of the children" is the motivation for some Americans. All I need to do is ask them.

Two problems with that. One, like with communists in the 50s, everyone would say they're a worry even if they personally didn't care simply to avoid being different. Two, the people who do panic about their kids aren't necessarily the ones who shape policy.

The fear itself is real, and sometimes justified, but disconnected from the actual things done in its name.

Assuming that there is a Chinese mindset is hardly controversial. Every culture has norms. I'm not sure why you would assume otherwise.

Actually, it is controversial. You can't average emotion or views. And anyways, China is far too diverse to have a mindset. (What's the average of North and South America combined?) The best you can do with groups like that is statistical predictions.

The communism scare or the think-of-the-kids scare appear to be nation-wide and all-consuming, especially to someone whose only information about us is our politicians and media, but they really aren't relevant in the day-to-day life of the people.

If you asked a "man on the street" he wouldn't, unprompted, be thinking about danger to the children at all. But if you brought up a hot-button issue like net censorship he'd think of it in terms he'd heard before, likely polarized ones he got from TV.

This "Chinese people focus on family" thing is blatant government propaganda. Like a Soviet poster showing a village pitching in to buy a tractor by giving up their personal luxuries.

What I'm suggesting is why the fake one works. And you are wrong. You need to understand why the fake one works in order to start to diffuse it.

The false story works so well because there is no defense against it. Children, they are defenseless and cute. And family, it raised you, dude. Knowing the specific arguments helps you avoid pitfalls in debates, but by the time you're talking to them in their terms you've already lost.

What you need to understand are the landmines, such as that in the USA Freenet is politically associated with kiddy porn. But that's how you avoid their false topic, not debate it.

So far, as best as I can tell, your explanation imputes far too much self-awareness to those being manipulated.

I don't think anyone is really aware of how they're being manipulated to hate Eurasia. And even if they would hate it naturally, how much it's being used as a scapegoat for unrelated things.

you need to understand why people will accept it. [...] So what other reason might it be? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Inertia? The joy of righteous mob rule? The stupid being led by the corrupt? Santa?

Re:Oh really?

[divisionbyzero]

Sorry, I think we are too far apart in our understanding of the world to have a useful conversation.

Re:Oh really?

[WNight]

Usually conversations are how you exchange views and gain understanding.

Anyways, I don't disagree with you that fake reasons exist, or that you have to understand them. I just think you need to identify them as fake reasons and deal with them differently.

Real issues have solutions. If someone's honestly worried for their children you can either help them protect their children or to understand how low the risks are. But if someone's just using it as a panic point they'll insist on perfect safety and other unreasonable standards.

Family-before-the-individual is a real opinion held by many people, but you could make a pro or anti-censorship argument based on it. It becomes a fake reason when always used by the conservative side to argue for increasing restrictions.

The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[ChrisK87]

...says the government that pays citizens by the post to write pro-government comments on Chinese blogs.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[the_womble]

In Asia "western governments" are used to justify bad legislation and censorship in the same way that terrorists and pedoophiles are used to justify the same in the west. There are so many handles you can use to push the sheeple where you want them to be.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[MoeDumb]

Americans use Facebook to spread political unrest, do they? Red China uses censorship, labor camps, torture and murder to squelch theirs. Clean up your act first, Wang, then we'll talk.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Sulphur]

Can they hire enough people to do that?

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[AHuxley]

Riots are great, China got a free Rockex cypher machine when "protesters" toured the British embassy in 1967 Peking.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Mashiki]

Forget chinese blogs, they wrist pro-government stuff on any blog or website that has anti-PRC comments.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[jedidiah]

> Americans use Facebook to spread political unrest, do they?

Sure... Teabaggers and Dittoheads.

By Chinese standards, Rush Limbaugh is no less of a problem than some CIA backed troll. Just being free to speak your mind constitutes "spreading political unrest".

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[TheEyes]

It wouldn't take all that many people to astroturf the most popular sites; maybe a few hundred, which wouldn't be that expensive at China's current wages.

The irony here is that Chinese wages are increasing, due to the chinese one child policy and their aging population; eventually it'll become far more expensive to play this sort of censorship game.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Wyatt Earp]

Like there aren't restive jackasses on the left.

Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher the anti-vaxer or my favorites...MEChA

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[baboo_jackal]

Sure - there are plenty of political agitators in the US, all over the political spectrum. The funniest thing with respect to this article is that whatever agitation the Chinese are complaining about is probably laughable compared to the scrutiny and venom to which *our* elected government is subjected from Rush, Beck, HuffPo, Daily Kos, Air America, etc. Seriously, who would *want* to be president of this angry-ass country?

(That said, I respectfully note both parent and GP 4-digit IDs and defer to your old-timey judgement) :)

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[KDR_11k]

Yeah but China claims to be extreme left so they see right extremists as worse.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Stormwatch]

Bill Maher the anti-vaxer

I swear, when I read that, I wondered why one would have a dislike for DEC computers.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[KDR_11k]

Americanization is a threat to the morale of any authoritarian nation because it teaches people that living in shit and working hard every day just to survive isn't as fun as living in a western society and dropping all that strict authority and religion. And worst of all, the people LIKE IT! Of course authoritarian governments and religious leaders don't like western influence, it diminishes the control people give them!

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony here is that Chinese wages are increasing, due to the chinese one child policy and their aging population; eventually it'll become far more expensive to play this sort of censorship game.

I just heard an NPR piece the other day on other effects of the one child policy,

Fewer children (especially boys) to help with farming. Consequent exodus to cities, leaving farms even worse off, maybe failing.

Finally, due to selective births of boys, there are now 1.25 (IIRC) boys per girl. So 20 percent of boys may end up producing no grandchildren to support either themselves or the grandparents.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[im just cannonfodder]

i think most countries are guilty of out and out propaganda. the USA and UK are far more slick than other countries but apply the same Orwellian police state brain washing tactics.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[ozonearchitect]

And this is a concern of whose? Oh, a government that controls the people. Hey China, we control our government, or haven't you heard? China is trying so hard to take over the U.S. it's pathetic. The funny thing is, they think they're winning the cold war, but we're not playing weiqi here... we're playing chess, oops. They're monitoring all the negativity towards Obama going around the internet and they don't like what they see. It's so obvious Obama is a plant... fail.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[cyberjessy]

In Asia? What a sweeping generalization. There are not many countries in Asia which has the kind of censorship China has.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Maybe they should find somewhere else to sell to and do business with so, and China can take its 7% of US national debt and do what it likes with it. This kind of saying one thing out of one corner of your mouth and something else out of the other always comes back to bite one in the ass, once enough of your population take it seriously. I have to admit I'm a bit surprised that this level of cold war rhetoric is still rasping from the klaxons.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[BangaIorean]

Just FYI - it's not just China and the middle east countries (Saudi Arabia and co.) that are 'Asian'. India, Japan, South Korea, Israel - are all Asian countries, to name a few. Your comment on 'Asia' is akin to saying that 'American countries' are full of drug lords and cocaine factories.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[BangaIorean]

And the worst part is, due to the extremely effective Chinese censorship, what we get to hear about the horrors that China inflicts on it's people is just one tenth of what they really do.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[compro01]

You're not the only one.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[icebraining]

religion

The People's Republic of China was established in 1949. Its government is officially atheist, which viewed religion as emblematic of feudalism and foreign colonialism.

Religious belief or practice was banned because it was regarded as backward and superstitious by some of the communist leaders, from Vladimir Lenin to Mao Zedong, who had been critical of religious institutions.

Communism never saw religion with good eyes. It was Marx himself that said "Religion is the opiate of the people".

It was only recently that the Chinese government acknowledged that banning religion was futile and counterproductive for their control, because it was a stress point.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[perryizgr8]

indian government would definitely implement the sort of censorship that china has. ask random people around you if people should be allowed to speak against the prime minister. most of them will say no. it is only incompetence that keeps them from doing it.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Yvanhoe]

Oh yeah, and you capitalist pigs don't have your own paid citizens that break havocs in our internet ? So tell me, what is this 4chan thing ? Why would people behave in such a way if they were not paid ? heh ?

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[PopeRatzo]

Americanization is a threat to the morale of any authoritarian nation because it teaches people that living in shit and working hard every day just to survive isn't as fun as living in a western society

And you don't think Americans are "living in shit and working hard every day just to survive"?

And those are the lucky ones with jobs.

The only difference between Chinese and Americans is that Americans think they're free. Just because we have nice TVs doesn't mean we have it so much better than the average Chinese.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[vivian]

The sad fact is, although it sucks to live in China due to censorship and general lack of political freedom, I don't think the US is really as free as everyone seems to think - after all, the US has the largest percentage of its population out of any country:

Figures are for the number of people jailed per 100,000 population, for 2007.
There is a more up to date list (7th edition) but I couldn't find a link for it that didn't require a PDF download.
USA: 714
China: 117
Japan: 58
Australia: 117
UK: 142 (England and Wales)

So don't sit back and congratulate yourself too much for living in a free and open country if you are in the US.
Of course, for many crimes in China you get a bullet in the back of the head - and it is estimated that there are thousands of executions per year.

About half the US population is sitting in jail as a result of drug related offences - due the the war on drugs and 3 strikes policies there.
It's also a big part of the reason why California is going bankrupt.

Of course, as everyone know, Australia is entirely populated by criminals, which may account for the relatively low percentage of us locked up here.

All that said - if China is so damned worried about Facebook being a tool of subversion, - they should start subverting the US using the same tools, if the Chinese system of government is supposed to be so damned good...

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[peragrin]

Actually who would want to be our president? you have to be a moron to even consider it. For any given situation you have one of three tools, diplomacy, lawyers, or soldiers. if you can't fix it with those three tools then your screwwed. Every one who goes to live in the white house comes out pale withdrawn, and much grayer than when they went in. The president of teh USA get's all the blame but rarely can do anything about it.

As an example BP's oil spill. BP is a company so diplomacy won't work. he can sue them or send in the army. The army doesn't have any experience in shutting down underwater oil wells so that won't work and suing them would take 5 years anyways. Therefore Obama can only let BP work add a little pressure but in reality is helpless. Yet he gets all the blame for failure.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[vivian]

The other difference is in the US, workers are sold the dream that anyone has an equal chance to make it big if they work hard enough at it, and workers are free to complain long and loud about the system , their bosses, how much the government sucks, etc.

In China, they had a revolution that was supposed to make everyone equal, but the workers are still getting screwed over and getting bugger all for their efforts, without any accompanying freedoms that US workers enjoy.

Of course in both systems, the workers are getting screwed, and will probably always get screwed, because those in charge of the means of production, (ie. factory owners, Intellectual property owners, land owners etc.) will always find a way to justify why their time and effort is worth so much more per hour than the ordinary employees.

For example, do you think that the average CEO of a company really does such a magnificent job compared to the average employee, that they should be paid 531 times the average hourly worker? http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/CEOsOverpaid.htm

There is definitely a case for CEOs getting paid more than a regular worker, (say, 10x), as they do have a great deal more responsibility and a rarer set of skills compared to the average worker, but that level of difference is a sign of a broken and unfair system, just as it is in China.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Atryn]

The only difference between Chinese and Americans is that Americans think they're free. Just because we have nice TVs doesn't mean we have it so much better than the average Chinese.

Average American Income: $43,762 (US Census Bureau)
Average Chinese Income: $2,025 (WorldBank)

Average US Life Expectancy: 75 / 80 (m / f) (WHO)
Average Chinese Life Expectancy: 72 / 75 (m / f) (WHO)

Probability of dying under 5 yrs old, US: 8 per 1000 (WHO)
Probability of dying under 5 yrs old, China: 24 per 1000 (WHO)

GNI per capita, US: $47,240 (World Bank)
GNI per capita, China: $3,620 (World Bank)

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Atryn]

About half the US population is sitting in jail as a result of drug related offences - due the the war on drugs and 3 strikes policies there.

Should we assume you meant half the US prison population?

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[kz45]

"The only difference between Chinese and Americans is that Americans think they're free. Just because we have nice TVs doesn't mean we have it so much better than the average Chinese."

It has nothing to do with "nice TVs". We are allowed to speak out against the government without getting thrown in jail. There is more than one political party (every US citizen has a chance to vote) and we can run businesses without having to pay off the corrupt government. There is no such thing as a license to have a certain amount of kids in the US.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Jeremy Erwin]

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! --Barry Goldwater

Of course, if you see the demands of justice and liberty as opposing forces, you might still claim that Goldwater is seeking the moderate position between absolute justice and absolute liberty. But that would involve a certain amount of debasement.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[kz45]

"The other difference is in the US, workers are sold the dream that anyone has an equal chance to make it big if they work hard enough at it, and workers are free to complain long and loud about the system , their bosses, how much the government sucks, etc."

You do have an equal chance. Hard work has to do with it, but it also takes a little bit of luck and a good idea (something that's actually worth money).

"In China, they had a revolution that was supposed to make everyone equal"

Does a society really want everyone to be equal? Everyone should have an equal chance, but human nature dictates that some people will put more effort into life than others

"For example, do you think that the average CEO of a company really does such a magnificent job compared to the average employee, that they should be paid 531 times the average hourly worker?"

Why does it matter? Private companies can pay their employees whatever they want to. If they want to pay the CEO $10 million dollars and the regular employees $10/hour, there should be no problems.

"There is definitely a case for CEOs getting paid more than a regular worker, (say, 10x), as they do have a great deal more responsibility and a rarer set of skills compared to the average worker, but that level of difference is a sign of a broken and unfair system, just as it is in China."

I love how you just throw a number out there and think that's it's "fair".

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[kz45]

"About half the US population is sitting in jail as a result of drug related offences - due the the war on drugs and 3 strikes policies there.
It's also a big part of the reason why California is going bankrupt."

I doubt a "big" part of the reason California is going bankrupt is because of people in jail. The main reason is because of all the super liberal social programs that pissed away all of the tax payers dollars.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Jeremy Erwin]

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

--Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

If someone is suffering from severe physical pain, the best medical solution is to diagnose and treat the underlying pain, and not simply to give them a narcotic. On the other hand, if you cannot treat the underlying condition, it would be inhumane to cut off opiates.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[hedwards]

Um, neither Rush nor Beck subject politicians to scrutiny. It's not really scrutiny, when you dig up some random thing then make up a reason for it to be bad.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Risen888]

Yeah, just China and North Korea and Thailand and Pakistan and...

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[arb phd slp]

Direct democracy is the problem in California. It's so ridiculously easy to add a bond item to the ballot that the legislature and governor has no power to create a budget. Spending gets decided by referendum.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[OzoneLad]

Average American Income: $43,762 (US Census Bureau) Average Chinese Income: $2,025 (WorldBank)

Is this adjusted for cost of living? Income values are meaningless unless you know the relative costs of equivalent standards of living between the two countries.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[vivian]

no, I do not think that society wants to make everyone equal - which is why the idealized version of communism will always fail - everyone is most certainly not equal, and people who put in the effort to better themselves and are more productive should be better rewarded for their efforts.

I think the real problem is rampant crony-ism in both China and in Western countries, where there is a huge disparity between the pay for top level jobs versus average jobs.

The 10x figure was not completely out of my ass, by the way. The average worker salary in the US is about $50,000, and in the 80's the salary used to be 42x the average working salary. President Obama has set the salary cap at 500,000 for any of the companies that the government bailed out (ie. 10x), and that seems like a reasonable starting point to me.

You can only live in one house, cruise around in one boat and drive one car at a time. At a certain point, bigger and bigger salaries for top CEO's stop increasing the real quality of life of an executive and instead just becomes a way of keeping track of how much better than the next CEO they are - ie. the marginal utility of every extra dollar a CEO earns approaches zero, but it is in our nature to always want more, so the salaries grow way beyond the point at which further increases are meaningless.

The same amount of money however, makes a much bigger difference to employees at the bottom end of the pay scale, and would overall improve the standard of the average employee much more, and generally make for happier employees.

I am not saying everyone should get paid identically - of course individual talents and skills have to be recognized and rewarded. I am just questioning the huge disparity between the top levels and the bottom levels, which are by and large maid at the expense of the guys on the bottom rung.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[hedwards]

7%? It's more like 70% of the US national debt. They can't afford to take it with them any more than we can afford to let them. It would be financial MAD.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[vivian]

There are 170,000 prisoners in California.
it costs $47,102 per prisoner to keep them in jail. http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/laomenus/sections/crim_justice/6_cj_inmatecost.aspx?catid=3
Total cost: $8 billion

California Budget deficit: $19 Billion

so no, just halving the number of prisoners alone would not solve the budget crisis - but some percentage of them would be paying taxes, and generally participating in the economy of the state which would further increase revenues, instead of each of them being a $47,000 a year money pit.

Additionally, the guards etc. that are needed to guard them would be engaged in some other part of the economy which would also increase growth.
Having a guard watching over a prisoner is the economic equivalent of having the state employ people to dig holes and fill them in again - it keeps people busy but does not help with the growth of the economy. If the prisoners really need to be in jail then it's worth while, but if they are there because of laws that tend to be "jail happy" ( like trigger happy) then it is a waste of resources to keep them there and a waste of their potential contribution to society. Leep jail for the really bad crooks - not the idiots that decided to smoke the wrong substance - those guys need education/rehabilitation, not jail.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[KillerLoop]

The regulations were already in place, unfortunately they were circumvented. (as far as I know)

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Anonymous Coward]

China has $900.2 billion of US Federal Debt, or 7.5% of the total.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[vivian]

Apparently it's about $587.50 USD per month for a western equivalent 2 bed apartment.http://matadorabroad.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-live-in-china/
For a little more you get much more ($2 a week) that you could not get in the west for the same price - eg. a maid, cleaning staff, etc, and the basica like food and energy are much cheaper than in the west.

However, your quoted average Chinese income of $2,025 per year (ie. $168.75 per month) is obviously well below this level.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Cwix]

See if we judged politicians on them misspeaking it goes both ways.. How about you blame Obama for something hes done.. not something hes said. Cause if we are going to judge politicians on stupid shit they say, Bush, Cheney, Palin, and McCain are all gonna be on the top of the list. (albeit Biden, and other democrats will be up there too lol) Im just saying its a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Things McCain said:

"I think she's most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president, tell you the truth." --on Sarah Palin, interview with Don Imus, Oct. 22, 2008

"[Sarah Palin] knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America. ... And, uh, she also happens to represent, be governor of a state that's right next to Russia." --after being asked about Sarah Palin's foreign policy experience, interview with WCSH-6, Portland, OR, Sept. 12, 2008

"I have had a strong and a long relationship on national security, I've been involved in every national crisis that this nation has faced since Beirut, I understand the issues, I understand and appreciate the enormity of the challenge we face from radical Islamic extremism. I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn't a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn't a governor for a short period of time." --explaining at an Oct. 2007 debate why Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are not qualified to be president

"I think if you're just talking about income, how about $5 million?" --after being asked by Rev. Rick Warren to define "rich," Lake Forest, California, Aug. 16, 2008

"Well, basically, it's a Google." --on how he's conducting his VP search, Richmond, Virginia, June 9, 2008

"We should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies." --Kenner, Louisiana, June 3, 2008

"Make it a hundred...That would be fine with me." -to a questioner who asked if he supported President Bush's vision for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 50 years

"I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."

"The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book."

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[BangaIorean]

With all due respect, that's a load of nonsense. Based on your statement, I'm sure you know next to nothing about the political situation in India. If I could get a dollar for every abuse that is hurled against not only the PM, but various politicians of various political parties and ideologies, I'd be richer than Bill Gates.

India has a million faults, but 'censorship desires' are certainly not among them. And for your information, read up about the 'National emergency in India' of 1975 if you can - that'll dispel any doubts about India's 'competence' w.r.t. censorship.

By the way, tell me what was the basis for your comment? Does it have any basis at all or is it just something you manufactured out of the back of your head? I'm guessing it's the latter.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[slick7]

"The other difference is in the US, workers are sold the dream that anyone has an equal chance to make it big if they work hard enough at it, and workers are free to complain long and loud about the system , their bosses, how much the government sucks, etc."

The Chinese workers are situated in a time frame correlated to 1910, prior to the union movement. Boy do the Chi-gov have a wake-up call heading their way.

"In China, they had a revolution that was supposed to make everyone equal"

Tienanmen square proved they are not equal. Government corruption in China has had a running start for centuries, don't expect it to end anytime soon. Forced population control, forced sterilization, a one child per couple policy, just to watch that one child die in an earthquake, in a school building of inferior construction, as well as being too old to have another child has nothing to do with the unrest in China, yeah right.

Why does it matter? Private companies can pay their employees whatever they want to. If they want to pay the CEO $10 million dollars and the regular employees $10/hour, there should be no problems.

1 Chinese yuan = 0.1477 US dollars
$10/hr equals to... let me do the math...1 yuan/$0.1477 x $10 = 67.70 yuan /hr. Do you really expect me to believe the average Chinese worker makes 67 yuan per hour? These people would be lucky to make 10 yuan/hr.
The Chinese want the market share just like the Japanese. When they have it, be ready for prices to go up rather steeply. The difference will be in quality, the Japanese will strive for it and the Chinese will just sell more crap to more people.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[slick7]

Average American Income: $43,762 (US Census Bureau)
Average Chinese Income: $2,025 (WorldBank)

World Bank? Do you mean the IMF? The leader of "ALL" the private banking institutions? The institutions that the bought dogs of the American political system bailed out over the financial scam perpetrated on the American people?

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[hedwards]

Only technically. You do realize that in total the Treasury, Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae hold nearly $2 trillion in Chinese investments alone? And that the Chinese have been buying up American debt at a rate of somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/7 of their GDP for some time?

They're not going to cash in treasury paper, which is still the safest in the world, without first pulling all that cash out. And yes it would be disastrous for both parties.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://2007-08.archives.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSummary/SUM/1249561.html

California spends 10,000,000,000 dollars or so a year for prisons

http://nicic.gov/Library/021777

Says 20% of males are in prison for drug related offences, 30% of females but as im rounding the hell outta some numbers im not going to include them as women only account for 7% of the overall population in prison

20% of 10 billion? 2 billion

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1884956,00.html

Says California's Pot Crop is worth around 14 billion
The estimate the tax will bring in another 1.3 billion per year

3.3 billion

The current budget deficit in california is 19.1 billion

So legalizing weed could see an impact as much as 1/6 of the deficit.

That doesnt take into account that all of those prisoners will be consuming, working, and paying taxes.
Or it could help with the litigation expenses for the prison overcrowding lawsuits that the state is paying for.. all the way to the supreme court

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0614/Supreme-Court-to-hear-California-prison-overcrowding-case

People sitting in jail are a BIG reason that California is having difficulty.. I mean 150,000 people sitting in facilites designed for 80,000 people costs alot of money.. guards.. food.. clothing.. electricity.. medical.. mental health.. dental.. courts.. parole boards.. probation officers.. electronic monitoring.. they all cost money..

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[slick7]

Figures are for the number of people jailed per 100,000 population, for 2007. There is a more up to date list (7th edition) but I couldn't find a link for it that didn't require a PDF download.

We are free for this one number alone. But don't you worry, the powers that be want to "change" that too. Reuters

About half the US population is sitting in jail as a result of drug related offenses - due the the war on drugs and 3 strikes policies there. It's also a big part of the reason why California is going bankrupt.

Why is it that the people most involved with drug trafficking never get caught?
These sites may open your eyes if you have the guts to do so.Site 1
Site 2
As to California's problems, do you think that this may have had something to do with it? Site 3

Of course, as everyone know, Australia is entirely populated by criminals, which may account for the relatively low percentage of us locked up here.

As everyone "knows" America was first made up of religious radicals and status quo malcontents and they were sent west across the Atlantic ocean by the same people who sent criminals to Botany Bay.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[slick7]

i think most countries are guilty of out and out propaganda. the USA and UK are far more slick than other countries but apply the same Orwellian police state brain washing tactics.

What are you talking about? LeBron James is as noteworthy as any propaganda!

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[butlerdi]

Sarah !

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Ash Vince]

Yeah, just China and North Korea and Thailand and Pakistan and...

Yet there is also South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, India, Israel, Kuwait and loads of other places.

It is the worlds largest continent so of course it contains some dubious countries. It would be like saying the Americas (North, South, and Central) are full of dictatorships based on the few in central America and ignoring all the rest. Making accurate generalisations about the policatal make up of an entire continent is just not possible unless you are limiting them to saying they have humans living there and not talking about antarctica.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[SpongeBob Hitler]

Figures are for the number of people jailed per 100,000 population, for 2007.
There is a more up to date list (7th edition) but I couldn't find a link for it that didn't require a PDF download.
USA: 714
China: 117

Although, to be fair, part of this is due to the fact that China *executes* a lot more of its convicts than we do.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Tablizer]

Brilliant quote. But, I'd also add copyrights/IP to the list.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[endymion.nz]

While I do understand your comment, American countries really are full of drug lords and walking cocaine processing factories.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Man On Pink Corner]

You can only live in one house, cruise around in one boat and drive one car at a time. At a certain point, bigger and bigger salaries for top CEO's stop increasing the real quality of life of an executive and instead just becomes a way of keeping track of how much better than the next CEO they are - ie. the marginal utility of every extra dollar a CEO earns approaches zero, but it is in our nature to always want more, so the salaries grow way beyond the point at which further increases are meaningless.

There are many pathways to financial success, but they all involve paying more attention to the contents of your own bank account and less attention to the contents of other peoples' bank accounts.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[ultranova]

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!

Yes, it is. It risks turning you into McVeigh.

And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!

Yes, it is. It keeps you from turning into Javert.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[endymion.nz]

You are allowed to speak out against the government because it makes no difference. Want to see US 'freedom of speech' in action? Look at Kennedy and MLK.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[ultranova]

There are many pathways to financial success, but they all involve paying more attention to the contents of your own bank account and less attention to the contents of other peoples' bank accounts.

And there are many pathways to changing the system so that it doesn't screw everyone who isn't financially succesful, but they all involve paying attention to people's bank accounts to figure out who's doing the screwing.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Macrat]

This past weekend, "protesters" in Oakland got free shoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdYoyh6mduA

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[ultranova]

Oh yeah, and you capitalist pigs don't have your own paid citizens that break havocs in our internet ? So tell me, what is this 4chan thing ? Why would people behave in such a way if they were not paid ? heh ?

4chan is an online mental asylum specializing in various sexual perversions. The inmates behave the way they do because they are mental patients, and the wardens - called moderators - imitate them in an attempt to create contact with them to allow the treatment to proceed. There have been numerous breakouts, sometimes called "raids", which is why it's still experimental.

There are other "chans" around, acting as control groups; the most notable perhaps being 7chan, which holds those patients judged too dangerous to be held at 4chan. This is why 7chan supports HTTPS protocol, to keep the pages and images of its deranged inhabitants from escaping en route and polluting the rest of the Internet.

You might wish to suggest to your government that they, too, start their version of this asylum. After all, your ideal of sanity is mindless conformity, and chans are quite good at inducing just that - just look at Project Chanology, an activity partaken by the inmates: removing their very faces should make any dictatorship swell with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Atryn]

World Bank? Do you mean the IMF? The leader of "ALL" the private banking institutions? The institutions that the bought dogs of the American political system bailed out over the financial scam perpetrated on the American people?

No, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are two completely separate institutions. Thanks for playing!

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Atryn]

Is this adjusted for cost of living? Income values are meaningless unless you know the relative costs of equivalent standards of living between the two countries.

For this, you could look at GDP per capita using Purchasing Power Parity method to adjust. On that page (you can also pull from The World Bank with the same results) you'll see U.S. as #11 and China as #128.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[perryizgr8]

i don't know much about the emergency because it was much before my time. but you just need to see hbo to understand the desire in indians to censor everything. they cut out all scenes of gunfights!! how lame is that?
i bet you think politicians really care about free speech and stuff?? actually the general public is satisfied to be ignorant and lazy. for example, find me a bookshop selling salman rushdie's satanic verses. hint:its banned. yes, apart from a couple of hardline islamic countries, this book is banned only in the great nation of india.
ps: you're right that i don't really understand the political situation here. but that's because i don't WANT too. to hell with it. and almost all activities during the emergency succeeded because of indira gandhi's competence. it was despite the idiocy/incompetence of our legendary bureaucracy.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[BangaIorean]

I get quite angry about this book banning spree too. Satanic verses was banned because of fear of Islamic fundamentalists, the Da Vinci code movie was banned because of protests by some christians (when predominantly Christian nations had done nothing about it!), the Shiv Sena and co. riot at the smallest pretext, and so on.

However, the important thing is almost all instances of censorship are linked to 'religious sentiments' and similar idiocy. India is still a nation that criticizes its politicians louder than anyone else. All incidents of censorship are linked to either 'religious sentiments being offended' or 'moral policing' (e.g. HBO). The possibility of censorship being brought in as a general policy looks extremely bleak! Hopefully someday soon the religious nutters will be shown their place!

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[peragrin]

regulations and laws mean lawyers and that takes years and doesn't stop the problem today.

all he can do is try to prevent another one. but that doesn't clean up the mess right now.

try again with more thought next time.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[Chris Mattern]

Yeah, just China and North Korea and Thailand and Pakistan and...

Don't forget Burma, which is worse than any of them.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[jgtg32a]

Need Mod points badly

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[cparker15]

I wouldn't mind being president. Being an anarchist, I think I would be able to bring a lot of balance to the US government.

I would do everything I could to bring about actual change for the better by dismantling as much as I could, and letting common people run the rest, without the need for a bloody revolution (one which, by the way, citizens today would almost certainly lose due to the severe imbalance in power, resources, and ambition).

I don't claim to have all the answers. In fact, I don't claim to have any answers. I would lead by not leading. Since I would be doing so little, I wouldn't even take a paycheck. I wouldn't even stay in Washington, DC. I'd do exactly what I'm doing now.

I'd redefine the government drastically with the help of a team of brilliant liberal free-thinkers. They'd do all the work, get all the credit, etc. The end goal would be that the federal government, if it continued to exist at all, would solely act as an aggregator of ideas and resources. It would only ever exist to help and progress; never to punish or repress. The only "crimes" would be actions that damage society (that cause actual harm). Punishment of "crimes" would be left up to the individual communities that were damaged. Of course, I wouldn't define how any of this would work--I would leave that up to the people actually involved in the processes.

Essentially, it would be a peaceful coup, and all power would be given back to "The People". I would be completely up front and honest about all of my intentions while running for office.

I wonder if anybody really, truly cares about freedom anymore.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[peragrin]

but a president can't do anything directly

the president can only propose a law. but that law must go through congress first. were it goes through committees who gut it.

The president can only sign a law after it has been passed by both houses, until then you have no direct control, only influence.

the federal government is an aggregator of ideas. It does really very little without communities and company's to support it.

This is the true purpose of the balance of power. It isn't taught because so very few can understand it.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[KDR_11k]

Banning religion isn't limited to communism, autocrats don't like competition so many autocratic nations suppressed religion. E.g. Saddam Hussein supposedly kept muslim extremists suppressed. Atheism rates do go up in communist countries though. Russia and the former GDR have fairly high atheism quotes.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[KDR_11k]

Corruption is much less present in the west (in many countries corruption is part of everyday life, in the west your average police officer won't ask you for a bribe) and while westerners may scream a lot we do have a LOT more freedom than someone in China. Just for an example: Try setting up a political party in the west vs doing the same in a communist country. The western party may not have much of a chance in the US electoral system (but other western countries have better systems) but in the communist countries you just get arrested for that.

Also we never really have to fear for our lives because we may not be able to afford the necessities of life, force our children to work in sweatshops to pay our bills and become the victim of organized crime. Our jobs are tested for safety so we won't be sent to mine hazardous materials without any protective gear. The govt can't simply deport us from our homes because it wants to use the space for something, while eminent domain exists it's restricted and of course there's the next election to worry about.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[KDR_11k]

Justice and freedom are different from left and right, left and right are the ideologies of socialism and nationalism, the ideas of all power to the people or all power to the state. The proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Neither of these extremes is freedom.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[kz45]

"President Obama has set the salary cap at 500,000 for any of the companies that the government bailed out (ie. 10x), and that seems like a reasonable starting point to me."

I don't support the government dictating the wages of any employee of a private company (aside from minimum wage). It shouldn't be a "start". It's the result of a private company borrowing money from the tax payers. I hope it's a special situation that is not repeated.

"You can only live in one house, cruise around in one boat and drive one car at a time. At a certain point, bigger and bigger salaries for top CEO's stop increasing the real quality of life of an executive and instead just becomes a way of keeping track of how much better than the next CEO they are - ie. the marginal utility of every extra dollar a CEO earns approaches zero, but it is in our nature to always want more, so the salaries grow way beyond the point at which further increases are meaningless."

I may just want a billion dollars just because. Neither I nor any CEO should have to justify where they are going to spend our money.

"The same amount of money however, makes a much bigger difference to employees at the bottom end of the pay scale, and would overall improve the standard of the average employee much more, and generally make for happier employees."

Maybe so, but that's up to a private company. Not you.

"I am just questioning the huge disparity between the top levels and the bottom levels, which are by and large maid at the expense of the guys on the bottom rung."

As an employee, you are only paid what someone is willing to pay you. The reason the maid is paid so little is because anyone can do that job. It takes little or no experience or education.

Top level employees have a lot of responsibility. They are also educated and many times risk more than the average employee. You can question the disparity, but it's really up to the company how they are going to spend their own money. If you don't like it, start your own company.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[kz45]

"And there are many pathways to changing the system so that it doesn't screw everyone who isn't financially succesful, but they all involve paying attention to people's bank accounts to figure out who's doing the screwing."

So what's your answer? giving people with small bank accounts more money and creating an upper limit on success?

You act as if making money is evil and is somehow "screwing" the poor.

Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet!

[kz45]

"There are 170,000 prisoners in California."

Ok, so the answer is to just let the criminals go? What a great answer to the deficit problem.

It looks like California's prisoners get medical and dental care. Why don't we cut the cost of those and some other benefits first?

"Leep jail for the really bad crooks - not the idiots that decided to smoke the wrong substance - those guys need education/rehabilitation, not jail."

One has to wonder the cost of "Educating" those prisoners as opposed to keeping them in Jail.

True but not necessarily a bad thing

[dbIII]

Most stable governments can survive a bit of political unrest and it's good for society in general.

Re:True but not necessarily a bad thing

[phantomfive]

It's worth mentioning that the Chinese have had the worst social unrest since perhaps the French revolution. The cultural revolution was a populist movement, pushed along by one man who had been sidelined in the government. Lots of people died, lots of great things were destroyed. Given that, it is kind of understandable that the Chinese are wary of avoiding popular unrest.

Another point that needs to be taken into consideration is that the Chinese power structure is not all based in the national government. Just as in the US there is a constant struggle between state power and federal power, in China there is a struggle between the national government and regional governments. One method the national government has as a power lever is manipulation of the people; they are capable of fomenting unrest when they want to foment it (as during the Correfour riots. Some have speculated that the riots were aimed not at the French, but at the city governments to remind them who is in control).

Re:True but not necessarily a bad thing

[DDLKermit007]

Actually it's not so much about local v federal. That's mostly to do with corruption, and not wanting to give up proffi...err control. They honestly could give two flips about autonomy unless you live in HK. The real issue that seems brewing to me is Western China military v Eastern China Government. What most know is the somewhat safe Eastern China where we get most of our shiny crap from. The Western China however seems to have more in common still with fudle lords of days long gone by. Just no one really talks about it much. The quality of life in that area is markedly lower (what middle class?), technology of course hasn't made much impact there, and if your foreign, your pretty insane to even think of going near the Western areas.

I'm still wondering how that is going to play out especially with the coming water shortages China is getting itself into.

Re:True but not necessarily a bad thing

[mwvdlee]

fudle lords

Not trying to be a grammar nazi here, but this sounds more like a Stooges-style comedy act than the feudal lords you obviously meant.

Re:True but not necessarily a bad thing

[ivanwyc]

It's worth mentioning that the Chinese have had the worst social unrest since perhaps the French revolution. The cultural revolution was a populist movement, pushed along by one man who had been sidelined in the government. Lots of people died, lots of great things were destroyed. Given that, it is kind of understandable that the Chinese are wary of avoiding popular unrest.

Please don't pretend you understand China. Cultural revolution was pushed by Mao, the Chairman of PRC who had never been sidelined by the government. The Communist Party manipulated unrest to get the whole country, and to further strengthen their administration they need to make sure all unrests are well under their control. Very often they plan and make use of "social" unrest to attack their enemies like the US and Japan.

Re:True but not necessarily a bad thing

[phantomfive]

Cultural revolution was pushed by Mao, the Chairman of PRC who had never been sidelined by the government.

If you don't think so, you don't understand Chinese history.

Re:True but not necessarily a bad thing

[ivanwyc]

You made yourself sounds funny. Of course I know Chinese History. I am a Chinese and have been studying modern Chinese history for half of my life. Please give evidence why Mao was sidelined by the government. Mao was King of the country, every Chinese knows that. "Chairman" was just a term borrowed from the western world. It is simply wrong that the Chinese Communist Party avoids unrest because "people died" or "great things destroyed", they don't give a shit. They actually love to manipulate social unrest. If you know how to read Chinese read more Chinese books. Some politicians from Chong Qing even want to bring back many ideas from Culture Revolution, they do love it. Give evidence. Don't just BS.

Re:True but not necessarily a bad thing

[thoughtsatthemoment]

Mao was King of the country, every Chinese knows that

Here's where I started to think you were trolling. If anything, Mao would like to be the emperor, not just a King.

At the time the Chairman of PRC was actually Liu Shaoqi, who was indeed trying to take over, at least on the economical side. Mao was the chairman of the communist party. Mao's economical policy was no match of Liu's, so he launched the Culture Revolution to strike back and succeeded.

Of course decades later, Liu's ally, Deng Xiaoping prevailed and Mao's vision of China was finally over.

Re:True but not necessarily a bad thing

[phantomfive]

I have evidence. You are rude. I wish to share nothing with you. If all Chinese are like you, I wish nothing to do with Chinese. Fortunately, they are not all like you. Go learn something about life.

The obvious solution

[phantomfive]

The obvious solution is to use social networks to their advantage, to manipulate the people.

Seriously though, they do have something of a point, the US WOULD push social networking in China if they thought it would help bring freedom of speech to China. It's not the US government pushing social unrest, it's the people themselves communicating and finding out the problems with the government. I don't think the US government pushing anything would help anything though, and might even hurt in this case. Better to let the Chinese people find their own way, as long as they don't go insane.

Re:The obvious solution

[The Wooden Badger]

I don't care what they do with facebook. I just want them to friend me and join my mafia.

Re:The obvious solution

[linzeal]

Top down authority schemes do not work on Facebook that well. See how many people respond to Farmville requests from people they love, respect or lust, do you think nationalistic memes will filter any better?

Re:The obvious solution

[phantomfive]

Anyone who don't believe this just need to look at examples as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the various democratically elected governments in South America (and around the world) overthrown by the US in the past century to see how US foreign policy works.

Just to point out something blindingly obvious......that should be blindingly obvious to you......US foreign policy has changed a lot in the last century. It has changed a lot in the last 25 years, and it's making dramatic changes right now as we try to find our place in the post cold-war world (note the switch Bush made between isolationism to invading countries). The entire world has changed! A hundred years ago, European countries couldn't wait to jump at each other's throats.

You are incredibly naive to lump an entire century together and say, "That is US policy."

Incidentally, if the 'ruling class' is controlling foreign policy, it is the fault of the citizens for allowing them to do that.

Re:The obvious solution

[mwvdlee]

Perhaps not the policy of the entire past century, but it certainly seems to be the same for the past couple of decades.

Re:The obvious solution

[inflamed]

Ideally Facebook would give you a reasonable blend of information about the people you care about, with minimal information about or from people you don't really like. However, suppose there were heuristically-identified vectors for promotional material. Not salespeople - just the subset of the population which has sincerely latched onto some given idea. These users could be located among the whole user base by filtering user communications and user networks (social graphs...). Amplify the signal of these identified people in the information feeds of their peers, and you will have used people's identities for advertising by suppressing the stream of ideas and information promulgated by your adversary. Paying to advertise your ideas is equivalent to paying for censorship against your adversaries. Marketing is fraud.

Re:The obvious solution

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Er, if you can join (and leave) a class as easily as all that, it wasn't much of a class, was it?

Re:The obvious solution

[phantomfive]

It hasn't. It's changed drastically in the past couple decades. Remember, 20 years ago, our policy was still containment of USSR. Then suddenly the iron curtain fell. It wasn't clear what our new foreign policy should be. Some people felt we should use our army as a force of good around the world, and criticized when we did nothing to help Rwanda. Should the US be the world policeman? How should it interact with a UN that is clearly toothless without the US?

Clinton liked the world policeman idea, and when Europe couldn't clean up the problems in it's own backyard (Bosnia/Kosovo), he sent the military to help. He then formulated the Clinton Doctrine, which says US should only intervene militarily when their interests are at stake. At this time, there was an important contingent in the US that felt Iraq should be overthrown (including Donald Rumsfeld).

In any case, the public didn't like spending money on wars they didn't entirely understand, and when president Bush campaigned for isolationism, it is likely something that helped him win. He kept up with the policy of isolationism for 9 months, anyway, when the world changed again, and the continental US was attacked directly. That utterly changed the foreign policy of the US, as we had something real to fight against again, a direct threat. He then made his policy to show the world how great democracy was by forcibly imposing it on Iraq (it is likely Donald Rumsfeld had a lot to do with convincing him this was a good idea). Some US scholars predicted the end of the Westphalian System.

Obama changed policy by trying to only fight 'good wars.' I am not sure that he's clarified what is a good war and what is a bad war, but Iraq is definitely a bad war.

Incidentally, we are only talking about military foreign policy, in terms of economic foreign policy, Clinton was a 'true believer' in globalization and free trade, Bush pushed free trade, and Obama started out more protectionist, and uses free trade more as a negotiating tool.

In short, US foreign policy has changed a lot in the last two decades and is still changing a lot.

Your Farms Belong to Us

[retech]

No doubt the FBI, CIA and DHS log far more hours in Farmville than just regular folk. It's a conspiracy I tell ya!

Re:Your Farms Belong to Us

[cosm]

No doubt the FBI, CIA and DHS log far more hours in Farmville than just regular folk. It's a conspiracy I tell ya!

I would say citation needed, but the current state of affairs speaks for itself.

Re:Your Farms Belong to Us

[mwvdlee]

I have never played Farmville, not do I care about Facebook, Myspace or whatever the most recent fad in social networking will be called, but can the farmers in Farmville have more than one child? Perhaps that would explain the political unrest.

By the way "political unrest" is just another way of saying "the current government want to take away some of your rights".

hah

[hubdawg]

Most of my friends and people in my social networks are the most politically unmotivated people I know. If anything the social network promotes apathy and isolation as much or more as it promotes the opposite. The medium is not the message. Individuals will seek whatever means to find the message they seek, the medium is not the issue.

Re:hah

[hedwards]

Like attracts like and as a result it's easy to end up in a situation of confirmation bias. People that are more politically astute tend to push people away that aren't, and those that are less astute tend not to draw the attention of those with interests in politics.

Radio

[michaelmalak]

What if the U.S. were to set up a radio station across the border from a nation, and began broadcasting propaganda into said nation?

The Slashdot community frequently criticizes the media for making arbitrary distinctions between the Internet and non-Internet realms -- time for some self-criticism.

Re:Radio

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Oh, I have no doubt that, if they thought they had a shot at it, the feds would be shoving propaganda down every last tube in the series, social networks included.

I'm just deeply unconvinced that something like Facebook, or any Facebook-esque clone, is a particularly effective medium for the US to spread political unrest in China(now, I can see a much stronger case for the US encouraging the spread of Facebook, ideally the real thing just so that we can make a buck on the side, or Facebook-esque sites within China, on the theory that they will magnify the effects of existing Chinese governmental problems).

Something like Voice of America, whether it is effective or not, is relatively easy for the government to set up. Some radio hardware in the nearest friendly or at least not hostile location, just enough native language speakers to translate the programs, and a friendly news desk to churn out the message. Getting the same effect from a social networking site is harder. Or, rather, getting a precise analog of that effect is pretty easy: just set up a VOA fan page/RSS feed/twitter whatever that people can choose to follow(and the state can probably block, in many cases). Using the social network more subtly and effectively is hard. Even the most sympathetic Chinese are going to be pissed if they are getting machine-generated spam from CIA fronts; because everyone hates machine generated spam. And it isn't bloody likely that we have anywhere near enough analysts who speak reasonably idiomatic Chinese and don't have better things to do to actually infiltrate social networks on a personal level and do message shaping.

Here is my guess: China, despite the authoritarian pretensions of its central government, has a great deal of trouble with corruption and mismanagement at the local level. When you combine that with a somewhat wild-west quasi-capitalist expansion, you get a recipe for a nearly constant stream of stories of abuses that would get all but the most dogmatically statist Chinese citizens upset. People's land basically being stolen by thugs with the connivance of local officials, blatantly illegal pollution poisoning people, fake baby formula with no actual nutritional content killing a few hundred babies by slow starvation, that sort of thing. The state doesn't generally approve of this sort of thing, often executing the perps; but it also generally does not approve of any spread of broader popular discontent about it. Some local anger is unavoidable; but censorship is frequently employed to slow the broader spread of the message until damage control and spin can be done. These are the sorts of situations where social networking tools could really make that task more difficult. Everybody is linked to their school buddies from back home, and their college buddies from wherever, and their work people from where they are now. Some nasty provincial scandal occurs back home, your highschool friend who stayed local tells you about it, you get upset and tell your college and work friends...

If that is the sense in which China believes that the US is "using Facebook to spread political unrest", they may well be right. I'm sure the Feds aren't exactly crying bitter tears over that effect, and they may even be taking more direct actions in its favor(overt and covert cooperation between strategic corporations and nation states is neither new nor exclusive to the US...). If, on the other hand, they are suggesting that facebook is full of CIA agents pretending to be popular schoolgirls or something, they are either lying or dreaming. The CIA might wish that that were so; but there just is no way that they have enough Chinese-speaking agents to have any real effect on Chinese areas of facebook, and everybody hates spam, so simply bombarding Chinese users with machine messages would be counterproductive.

Re:Radio

[JackieBrown]

You mean like The Zero Hour?

Of course, we aren't putting POWs on our radio for the sake of demoralization.

Re:Radio

[kg8484]

If you are expecting me to be hypocritical, I'm not. I have no problem with Voice of America, China Radio International, Radio Moscow etc. The countries that jam those stations tend to be a bit on the totalitarian side, so it is fair to criticize them for any kind of censorship.

Re:Radio

[DesScorp]

But we DO use Facebook for unrest. Just like our newspapers, TV programs, and yes, VOA. When the status quo is a dictatorship, then yeah, pretty much any kind of free press or communications is going to "foment unrest". So what? The only alternative is isolationism.

Now, maybe you could make the argument that we should go back to defacto isolationism; we'll do things our way here, and you do things however you like over there. That used to be the way things were. However, if we change that, then we're abandoning essentially all of our post WW II foreign policy, as the whole idea was the isolationism made WW II worse. To change that was to say that FDR was wrong and his adversaries stateside were right: stay out of their business. It's the Ron Paul school of policy. Eventually that means taking an "I'm OK, you're OK" policy toward a Hitler or a Stalin or a Pol Pot.

Re:Radio

[magarity]

The Slashdot community frequently criticizes...
 
...Chinese policies and yet when I lived there last year I never had a problem getting it. YouTube, otoh, was never accessible.

Re:Radio

[PolygamousRanchKid]

What if the U.S. were to set up a radio station across the border from a nation, and began broadcasting propaganda into said nation?

Set up a numbers station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station instead. It's more fun and sporting to keep them chasing their own tails, instead of flooding them with propaganda, which they can understand and refute.

Now, what does that message mean, for whom it is for . . . ?

Re:Radio

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Here is my guess: China, despite the authoritarian pretensions of its central government, has a great deal of trouble with corruption and mismanagement at the local level. When you combine that with a somewhat wild-west quasi-capitalist expansion, you get a recipe for a nearly constant stream of stories of abuses that would get all but the most dogmatically statist Chinese citizens upset.

Meh, they are probably just clearing the way for the Chinese facebook, just like they did with Google and the rest of them.

Re:Radio

[AHuxley]

Radio, cult, ngo, wealth dreams, students, adult material, music, education, the CIA will get you one way or another and then the political rot sets in :)

China?

[chebucto]

or Chinese-government-backed-think-tank?

Perchance I wonder how many outrageous statements I could attribute to US government back think tanks if I tried.

F this warmongering nonsense. There are fanatical Chinese nationalists, yes. What I don't appreciate is the fact that there are warmongering US nationalists who get their 'stories' posted to slashdot.

Why not just outbid the US Gov in a tapping bid?

[G3ckoG33k]

Why not just outbid the US Gov in a tapping bid? What could the market value be? Stasi and KGB would have needed a saliva bucket next to the bed for this.

Sounds like paranoia and projection to me...

[divisionbyzero]

Given that the Chinese government pays people to do the very same thing on every Western media/blog site they come across. I seriously doubt the American government does the same. There is no need. Apparently the Chinese government can't tell the difference between real enthusiasm (even if implicit) for one's country and the enforced/coerced kind to which they are accustomed.

Really ? How ?

[pawzlion]

What are they doing, not "liking" China's status updates ? Perhaps people are joining groups titled "If a million people join this group, we will overthrow Hu Jintao" Gee China, paranoid much ?

Re:Really ? How ?

[macshit]

There are plenty of FB groups/fan-pages like "free tibet", pro falun-gong, etc (and stuff like "free the monks in burma" which is not directly related to China, but which nonetheless likely makes the chinese government nervous), and those may be what they're whining about.

It's very unclear whether such groups make any actual difference in practice, even if they have many members, but they do help to keep such issues an active subject of popular discussion, and of course the chinese government royally freaks out at even a mention of many of these topics (I don't know why they do, exactly, other than an institutional proclivity to freak out at even the slightest loss of control over information).

Re:Really ? How ?

[Vintermann]

I wonder how long that group would last if you actually created it. I admit I would be sorely tempted to join, just to make a couple of Chinese officials sweat a little.

very close

[stanlyb]

In matter of fact, they are not so far away of the truth, considering all the privacy issues....or lack of privacy....

I use Facebook to spread unrest among supermodels

[Nova Express]

All elbowing each other side for the chance to date ME! Luscious, luscious me.

I would post more about my sexy good looks are spreading unrest throughout the world, but I have to be at the gym in 26 minutes...

Chinese firewall with open proxy servers

[Anonymous Coward]

China's government lets hackers use open proxy servers in China to break into computer systems in other countries and then keep a copy of whatever is stolen for themselves.

They can keep their citizens behind a firewall but somehow cannot manage to shut down open proxy servers.

They set Chinese wages extremely low and then pegged their currency to the dollar so U.S. manufacturers could not compete.

The corporations that pay for U.S. politicians' reelection campaigns got a cheap source of labor and U.S. citizens got a huge national debt because the government's revenue base from manufacturing and exports was eroded.

Can't imagine why a Chinese worker on a subsistence wage would cause political unrest. It must be Facebook.

If the Chinese want stability it's the other way.

[kawabago]

If the Chinese want stability then they must respect minority rights, languages and cultures and respect all human rights in general. If they did that they would have a stable happy population. There is no way they will ever do that so stability is not what they want. Obedience is what they want. I don't think they'll get that either.

Governments oppose Free Speech

[kainosnous]

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.

Re:Governments oppose Free Speech

[goodmanj]

A web that gives you only pretty pictures won't help the world, and likewise won't hurt a government.

No? How about these pretty pictures?
(Wikileaks video of US military killing civilians)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0&has_verified=1

(Tienanmen Square)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

(Protests against Iranian election results)
http://mashable.com/2009/06/20/iran-youtube/ ...and that's just a start. We as geeks may have buzzwords like "semantic web" that we like to
trot out, but the fact is that whenever you give people new tools to talk openly to one another on a mass scale, whether that's text, audio, or video, oppressive governments tremble.

And the great thing about the Internet is that it's designed from the ground up to reject authority. Cracking down on free speech on the Internet, no matter what form that speech takes, is like wrestling a greased pig.

Re:Governments oppose Free Speech

[sumdumass]

You list three things that do little to counter the op's point which was

"A web that gives you only pretty pictures won't help the world, and likewise won't hurt a government".

You also missed his point altogether.

I mean all the government's behind that are still in power without any serious hiccups. At best, China instills the fear of death in dissidents and actually benefits. Iran, well they aren't a democracy to begin with so it is little more then a well crafted illusion pretending to give the people power but in the end, all it did was worry the authorities that they would have to kill some peasants. The US military killing civilians changed nothing. Those already pissed at the US government remained pissed, those who know war is terrible just pointed out how terrible or horrific it can be. Those who supported the war simple made excuses to why it was a mistake and went on with life. Those who just don't care might have showed some outrage but quickly went back to not caring. If anything, the first two I mentioned exchanged a few people in the groups but the outcome is the same. And none of any of this resulted in governments being changed.

BTW, his point was that if you remove everything (which would include those videos and reports) and only present pretty little pictures, it does nothing to help the world or hurt the governments of the world. Of course help and hurt are subjective terms.

Re:Governments oppose Free Speech

[jbssm]

i can assure you when the MILITARY designed the internet, free speech was the last thing on their mind

Here we go again. The military (and by military I think you are stating the US military, although it's not that important), didn't invent the internet. The internet was invented at CERN, which in case you don't know it's an European physics organization and doesn't have links with the military.

Re:Governments oppose Free Speech

[Raenex]

This post is so laughably wrong I almost think it's a joke, but I don't think it is. Internet != Web. The Internet was started at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and yes, that's US military.

Re:Governments oppose Free Speech

[jbssm]

You are right. I did mistake the two things. Although what are we talking here about is the Web, not the internet.

Re:Governments oppose Free Speech

[Raenex]

The posts above you were explicitly talking about the wider Internet. When it comes to free speech, the Web is an important part, but just one part. Famous quote: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Anything from email, to IRC, to instant messaging, to chatting in a game can be used to spread information on the Internet.

They have a track record

[AHuxley]

Just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution#Soros_foundation_and_U.S._influence
You also have "US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa

No need

[izomiac]

An idea must have certain characteristics to spread. Usually it's concise, moderately witty, and in accordance with a person's beliefs. Historically, I'd imagine state sponsored think tanks would generate such ideas and spread them to achieve a political goal. With the internet, ideas are being randomly generated to such an extend I doubt a think tank could introduce a unique idea into the system. So that strategy doesn't really work anymore.

Right now, I would imagine that the more powerful force is subtle hinting by traditional media. I know a lot of older folk that get very little information from the internet, and it seems that just about all of them think China owns all of our national debt and will become hostile to the US eventually. I've no clue who the puppeteer is though.

Take THIS, China

[Concerned Onlooker]

That's it. I am unfriending China.

Re:Take THIS, China

[StupiderThanYou]

That's it. I am unfriending China.

Hey, China still cool!

Free speech: The US's most powerful weapon

[goodmanj]

This goes to something I've been saying for years now. The U.S. has some pretty impressive military power, but that's not what scares the world's dictators, religious zealots, and oppressive regimes. What do they fear about us? Rock 'n' roll, short skirts, blue jeans, and *especially* cell phones, e-mail, and Facebook.

The U.S. does a lot of things poorly, including, lately, waging ground wars. But one thing we're still very very good at: coming up with new ways for the world's young people to mock and ridicule authority figures, and for adults to talk to each other freely without government interference.

The cell phone, the 18" satellite dish, and the Internet are the most terrifying weapons against autocratic states the world has ever known. Is Facebook a threat to oppressive regimes? HELL YES, and we should be proud of that.

U.S. foreign policy should recognize this fact, and use it to its advantage. Rather than planning air strikes against Iranian and North Korean nuclear sites, we should be flying over and dropping cell phones, laptops, and MP3 players loaded with Rage Against the Machine and Ani diFranco.

Re:Free speech: The US's most powerful weapon

[andre1s]

Hmm reminds me of an old soviet joke the gist of which was A person from US trying to convince someone from USSR that there is no freedom of speech in USSR -In US a person can call a president an "idiot" with no repercussions -It same here replies the dude from USSR anyone can call US president an "idiot" with no repercussions

Re:Free speech: The US's most powerful weapon

[goodmanj]

I'm drawing a distinction between American government and American culture and technology. The US government has, of course, supported some oppressive governments, but it's done so in *spite* of our cultural power, not because of it.

You basically have all of that rolled into one with Saudi Arabia, and they do not fear us.

Yes they do. They don't see our government as a threat, but if you showed your average Saudi sheikh or mullah a Facebook page showing his daughter in blue jeans and a T-shirt attending a Lady Gaga concert, he'd probably have a heart attack. And if he survived, we'd probably have to grant the daughter political asylum.

We only spread freedom for businesses; individual freedom never plays into the equation.

I share a lot of your cynicism, but you're looking at too short a timeframe. Iraq, sure. But we didn't have a real economic interest in launching airstrikes in Yugoslavia, for example, and until very recently we had very little corporate incentive to defend South Korea. The U.S. government does act to defend corporate freedom, yes, but that's not its *only* motivation.

And besides, U.S. corporate interests aren't necessarily in opposition to the creeping free-speech hegemony I'm talking about. After all, what do we *make* here in the U.S.? Music, movies, TV shows and software.

Re:Free speech: The US's most powerful weapon

[butlerdi]

Do not forget Ramstein

Re:Free speech: The US's most powerful weapon

[kubitus]

timeo americanos et dona ferentis

especially when steered from some spindoctors

Re:Free speech: The US's most powerful weapon

[carp3_noct3m]

When are people going to learn that, though often the rhetoric we pay close attention to calls for action against the west because it is the "Great Satan", and all that goes with that, that the line many westerners have been fed about others hating the west because of its democracy, freedom of speech, and general ideals is a crock of shit. This is a line fed to the masses that has unfortunately become almost universally accepted by those with only cursory knowledge of international policy on a broad scale. Most (people, governments) hate the west for our international policy regarding them. There are often the vocal few who use the propaganda of hating western ideals as inflammatory tools for recruitment, but with true goals of changing of international policy. This is the reason why Americans hear so few moderate voices opposing those who hate us; the moderates are out there and often do not approve of the opposition's actions, but they hate U.S. policies with just as much venom and passion. The sad thing is that so many people would read what GP just said and nod their head in agreement, and they would be wrong.

Now, back OT. Just recently I read an article (2600) about the use of facebook to manipulate local populations (college campuses) on a fairly large scale, done by one person. While I naturally doubt China's claims, it is not infeasible that if the US wanted to, they could do something of a similar fashion.

Re:Free speech: The US's most powerful weapon

[steelfood]

Unfortunately, stuff like free speech that's also freedom of artistic expression also disrupts the corporate overlords running the US government. They'd rather the government use bombs and machine guns, which makes corporations and their major stockholders wealthy.

Re:Free speech: The US's most powerful weapon

[goodmanj]

Last I checked, Time Warner was higher on the Fortune 500 list than Lockheed Martin.

Facebook spreads political unrest

[dilvish_the_damned]

And here I thought it was completely useless.

Farmville!

[countertrolling]

Somebody planted the seeds of unrest...

Re:Farmville!

[euyis]

Don't worry, the blossom of harmony is already here!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Farm
(Also, who copied who? Or these two games were developed independently?)

Re:Farmville!

[lennier1]

Actually Farmville is more of a danger to China.
Imagine all the office workers around the world who waste time on checking up on their farms and therefore reducing real life productivity.

and they are 100% correct

[circletimessquare]

facebook is simply free speech

and in china, the simple act of free speech is a politicized concept. politicized by the chinese government

the chinese government has defined speech as not free, so anyone who engages in it is by that very act of speaking freely engaging in political unrest, according to the parameters established by the chinese government

and all the chinese government has done is defined their own weakness. most of the time, you speak freely, and if they don't like it, they send you to work camps for 11 years. but someday, dear china, someone will speak the simple truth, you won't like it, and the simple act of you moving against that speaker of the truth you dislike will ignite a maelstrom of political unrest that will sweep you away. all internal, dear china, no imperialistic meddling foreigners needed

you've made free speech your enemy, china, and therefore all you've really done is define the parameters under which you will fail: due to the anger of your own people. you have already defined how you will fall: your own hardheaded need to control, even to the extent of the contents of people's thoughts. it is your fatal weakness, because your people are not robots, even though you treat them this way

china, your weakness is not imperialistic foreigners. it is your own people. because you have defined them as such. you have told them their minds are not free

Perhaps some though is warranted

[greentshirt]

While claims like these, particularly when considering the source, are easy to brush off as ludicrous, I feel an open mind is warranted. The United States has a long and sordid history when it comes to discretely tampering with foreign states (some of it now declassified).

Combined with the recent rise of so-called astrotrufing (fake grassroots movements), and the trend of PR firms working for foreign governments in order to exact policy change (eg as documented regarding Kuwait, in Armed Madhouse), I think that there is something to consider here. That being said, in this particular case would it be a good thing if elements in the US government were using an American based technology firm to help give a voice to oppressed peoples in China? Probably, yes... But I think the intellectual, tech-savvy elite have a bit of a responsibility to judge this kind of accusation based on merit rather than on the (dismal) track record of the nation making this claim. Why? Because if we close our eyes when the tactic is being used on a foreign, despotic regime, we risk ignoring a potential threat which could be used internally as well. Freedom works, anyone?

How?

[Kenja]

How do you spread political unrest amongst an apathetic public?

Let a thousand flowers bloom?

[identity0]

I wonder if the Chinese gov't (or other regimes) have thought of just using Facebook to track down the networks of friends and acquaintences of dissidents, instead of banning it.

During the Cultural Revolution, they said "Let a thousand flowers bloom", meaning they let dissident and anti-regime opinions flow unrestricted, suddenly free of censorship. But instead of listening to those ideas and implementing them, after a short period of freedom they cracked down and jailed those who had raised 'bad' opinions after they had revealed themselves. The promise of free speech had been a trap. I wonder if the same sort of thing could happen with online social media?

People in the west talk about privacy violations of Facebook, but imagine if a bad gov't got its hands on all that data and data mined it...

Re:Let a thousand flowers bloom?

[kubitus]

there are reports who say that exactly what is claimed by the article had happenened in Iran after Ahmadi Nejads reelection. Echelonm spywork was used to find out network of friends critical of the regime and those were then sort of called into a flash-mob through faked mobilephone calls done by the CIA.

Re:Let a thousand flowers bloom?

[Psaakyrn]

Any account "which slipped from the Government's ban-hammer" is actually (a) secretly being watched, or (b) an intentional seed to lure out dissidents.

Anyone paranoid enough would know this.

Wow! Didn't know that!

[YankDownUnder]

...and here I thought it was just plain old "freedom of speech" that caused political unrest in politically restrictive governments. Far out. Yet another reason to blame Facebook for something or another. Can I blame them for the stains on my socks as well? Can I blame the US government for my washing machine breaking down? It could be a plot by the US government along with other Western governments to get me to move back to the US...OH WAIT, I'm in Australia...yeah...right...never mind...

China is using tanks to suppress political unrest

[cstec]

X = 1/X - isn't that the new age's definition of equality?

Re:The Rebublican Pary Agrees

[thatskinnyguy]

Someone please mod troll or flamebait. For god sake.

Re

[conscarcdr]

As a Chinese, I /facepalm very hard at this latest stunt of our paranoid government.

When can I expect my cheque?

[Arancaytar]

Honestly, I'd love to get paid by the CIA to use Facebook. Maybe then I'd start playing Farmville or some shit.

Re:When can I expect my cheque?

[BangaIorean]

Well, in China, the communist government actually pays people to trawl the internet for anti-China stuff and spam message boards with pro-China and pro-Communist Party propaganda!

Turnabout paranoia is fair play:

[Hartree]

Wow... Does this mean that the Chinese government is also using Baidu Space to spread political unrest here in the US?

Maybe Gen. Jack D. Ripper was right, and they're using it to pollute our bodily fluids!

US spreads political unrest using Facebook

[mr_lizard13]

Adolf Hitler likes this

Re:US spreads political unrest using Facebook

[perryizgr8]

Adolf Hitler and 1.3 billion other people like this

In fact, the US Mk II - with a difference

[Kupfernigk]

Where have I encountered a landmass with an advanced society in the East and increasingly wild and ill-governed territory to the West in which native peoples were wiped out and had their culture destroyed? Oh yes.

Now to make a serious point. One of the biggest problems of the US today stems from that time in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It's backward religions. Pioneers equipped with nothing but the Bible and no educated teachers went on to invent ridiculous religions - such as Mormonism and the wilder extremes of Southern Baptists - that continue to hold the US back socially and culturally today. (The same thing happened in South Africa, where the Dutch Reformed Church arose from semi-literate Boerdom.) The backward religions, just like fundamentalist Islam and settler-friendly perversions of Judaism, are well funded to gain support via the Internet.

The Chinese actually need to use the Internet to stop the same thing happening there. The Internet can spread a wider view of the world. My guess is that the Chinese government is well aware of the argument I've outlined above, in far greater depth, and their policy is simply based around the traditional Chinese policy of using the media to spread cultural homogeneity, but with an eye to the undeveloped part of China rather than the developed part. This is far from stupid. Freedom of speech is all very well in a pluralistic Western society where you can look out of the window and see that people are lying, but much less effective for isolated agrarian communities with no standards of comparison.

Pot meet kettle

[tokul]

China uses various tools to control and suppress political unrest.

Freedom of speech on Internet

[johnsonlam]

The Chinese government know nothing about freedom of speech, all of it's statement is for it's own benefit. As a Chinese live in Hong Kong, we're trying hard to achieve freedom of speech but we're already under heavy attack of all the pro-Beijing propaganda. Yet they want to stretch their hands to western world, Trying to discuss or reply to it proof futile, just ignore the annoying Chinese government.

Re:The Rebublican Pary Agrees

[Kiaser Zohsay]

As I see it, the Chinese authoritarian attitude and the Republican authoritarian attitudes differ only in degree, not in kind.

Wow, they really do hate our freedom.

Of course they do

[jvkjvk]

Just the existence of an outlet where people can voice their concerns "spreads political unrest."

If people don't know how badly the government is treating them or their neighbor there is certainly less unrest.

If people don't realize that there are others that want to make changes as well, they are more likely to keep still. Less unrest that way, too.

It unfortunately seems that part of the entire idea is to get people to talk to one another! Surely that can't be good for a restful totalitarian state, can it?

Now, if they would all just play Farmville instead...

Regards.

why do we care what China says?

[jsepeta]

their country is run by a bunch of dictatorial bastards. anything that comes out of their media / pr is bullshit. we should ignore their campaign of disinformation, because that's all their citizens get.

COMMUNISM spreads political unrest

[v1]

subject says it all. Quit blaming *.* for your political unrest. YOU are the common factor. Time for some self-reflection here methinks.

At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[rainmouse]

Murder rate in the USA is 42.8 per 1,000,000 people (freedom of speech and right to bear arms) Murder rate in the UK 14.0 per 1,000,000 people (freedom of speech) Murder rate in Hong Kong is 5.5 per 1,000,000 people (some limits on freedom)

I'm not saying that freedom of arms and speech turn people into hate filled psycho's (certainly other countries with limited freedoms have very high murder rates) but culturally people are very different all over the world and a murder rate more than 8 times lower than the USA is not insignificant. We have no idea what the effect of radically altering someone's culture might have and like it or not, ceasing all forms of censorship in China will have a shock effect on many of the people living there. I am preferably interested to hear what people in China feel about these issues more than people in the West demanding on behalf of people in China.

Please note that I had to use the rate for Hong Kong because China was apparently so low down as to not even be on the list of 62 highest murder rates, I note also that places under Sharia law were also absent from the list

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

Please note that I cannot vouch for either the accuracy or how recent these statistics are, but then you can say that about any posted statistics.

Personally I believe in as much personal freedom as we can get, but I felt the need to provide some kind of balance to the discussion and sometimes I wonder if we really have the right to demand and impose our freedoms on other places that work in a very different way, despite what the above poster said that all humans are basically the same and want to kill steal and rape all day, I'd like to think otherwise.

I would also like to quickly address the above poster who said "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."

I would like to draw attention to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States which states quite clearly "Americans have the highest income inequality in the rich world and over the past 20–30 years Americans have also experienced the greatest increase in income inequality among rich nations. The more detailed the data we can use to observe this change, the more skewed the change appears to be... the majority of large gains are indeed at the top of the distribution."

Like I said, freedoms are good, but our own implementation of them may not necessarily be the best method when considering some of the results.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[erroneus]

I'm with you in all respects. I know where the U.S. has been going and I hate it tremendously. The U.S. is not what it once was and some would even say it never was what we thought it was. But in either case, the state of the nation has definitely slipped further from "American Ideals and Morality" (tm) than ever and it sickens me. We will never have an ideal society, but then I see idealism as a direction, not a goal. I am a U.S. flag waver... but I am also a U.S. flag burner.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[kdemetter]

Murder rate in the USA is 42.8 per 1,000,000 people (freedom of speech and right to bear arms)
Murder rate in the UK 14.0 per 1,000,000 people (freedom of speech)
Murder rate in Hong Kong is 5.5 per 1,000,000 people (some limits on freedom)

I'm sure that , in a repressive regime , there is less crime , as people would be to scared to do anything.

Freedom is indeed a game of balance : the more freedom someone has , the less freedom someone else has.
Without regulation , the strongest people will have the most freedom , and the rest will have none.
Without over-regulation such as China , the government ( the strongest people ) will have the most freedom , and the rest will have none.

Isn't it strange how those 2 extremes are so similar ?

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[penix1]

Yeah well in China people walk into elementary schools and smash kids dead with hammers.

Haven't heard of THAT happening in the US.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html

That should refresh your memory.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[Maestro485]

I haven't done any research but I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of murders that occur in the United States are due to gang violence related to our futile "War on Drugs."

The "War on Drugs" is also the reason that states are going bankrupt trying to house one of the largest prison populations on the planet.

The fact that the "War on Drugs" is insanely profitable for law enforcement and drug dealers alike, and that our citizens have been so indoctrinated of the "evils" of drugs from our government, a sane change in policy is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[ultranova]

I am preferably interested to hear what people in China feel about these issues more than people in the West demanding on behalf of people in China.

With the censorship in place in China, how are they going to tell you? Or form an informed opinion, for that matter? How do they know you aren't a government agent weeding out dissidents? How do you know you're not talking to a government agent?

I don't think you really understand what it means to live under censorship. It is not just an "issue", it means that your information sources - and thus your very thoughts - are dominated by whoever's in charge.

Asking people who live under censorship is about the same as asking a corpse if it minds being dead, often quite literally.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[King_TJ]

IMHO, nothing you said deserves a "flamebait" rating in any way, shape or form! It's nothing but thoughtful commentary....

I will say, though, that for all the negativity towards "income inequality", I happen to believe that unless it reaches extremes (such as is seen in dictatorships where the masses are all dirt poor while the political leaders and their connections live a posh lifestyle), it's generally a reflection on the natural state of things. Some people, by nature, will always be lazy or unmotivated to achieve financial success. Indeed, some will revel in their lack of finances -- perhaps for religious reasons, or simply from a belief that their situation makes them more "down to earth, normal" people than everyone else. Meanwhile, there's going to be a small minority of "super motivated" people who focus solely on maximizing their income. Since they have this financial "fixation" to such a great degree, it only follows that they'd wind up with much more income than most.

I've never been convinced that it's a "better way of managing things" to try to artificially even out these income disparities. And unfortunately, I see today's United States of America following that path, instead of holding on to our more traditional reluctance to "rob from the rich and give to the poor". (If you subscribe to that belief system, it seems like plenty of other nations operate that way already.)

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[Pumpkin Tuna]

I am preferably interested to hear what people in China feel about these issues more than people in the West demanding on behalf of people in China.

Please note that I had to use the rate for Hong Kong

Gee. What a great idea. Let's listen and see what they think. . . . . . . . . . Oh wait, you can't hear what they think because they don't have freedom of speech.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[eugene ts wong]

What would you say about America, if they removed the right to bear arms, and then the murder rate shot up from 42.8 / 1,000,000 to 200 / 1,000,000? I'd really like you to think through it, and then share your thoughts with me. I don't think that it is fair to compare them the way that you did.

Also, in places with Sharia law, most deaths are most likely attributed to natural deaths, deaths due to holy wars, and justice. If I want to kill you, and I have a law to protect me, then it won't be attributed to murder. This goes the same way in other countries. I've nothing against blacks and whites, but I do want to use them just for the sake of illustration. If a white master kills a black slave, then do you think that it would be murder, *legally* speaking? Legally speaking, it probably won't be, but you and I can look in with a clearer mind, and say that it murder, pragmatically speaking.

Also, another thing to bear in mind is how we deal with dead bodies that are unaccounted for. If a body turned up in a river, then would it first be classified as a murder, an accident, or what? I wouldn't be surprised if some cultures would just assume that it might have been just an accident, while others might initially classify it as murder.

You gave disclaimers for those statistics, and I respect that, but I think that you shouldn't have brought those into the discussion. They just cloud the issue.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[Narcocide]

Yea, but the SUICIDE rate amongst females in China is the highest in the world.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[rainmouse]

I've never been convinced that it's a "better way of managing things" to try to artificially even out these income disparities. And unfortunately, I see today's United States of America following that path, instead of holding on to our more traditional reluctance to "rob from the rich and give to the poor". (If you subscribe to that belief system, it seems like plenty of other nations operate that way already.)

I agree with this and definitely do not believe a Robin Hood state on the slippery path towards communism is a good way of evening out any income disparity. This would likely breed a welfare state of unmotivated people, I personally believe that hard work and excellence should be rewarded; However many of our laws are geared and continually altered towards further empowering people who already have massive financial advantages. Seemingly infinite extensions on copyright is a good example of this in action but this situation is unlikely to change as it is only with massive corporate investment that people can get anywhere in polities these days. In 1802 when Thomas Jefferson pushed forwards the separation of church from state, I believe we should be now pushing towards a separation of large profit based organisations and state and so avoid politicians being massively influenced by where their campaign contributions come from and what companies they are major shareholders for.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[divisionbyzero]

Murder rate in the USA is 42.8 per 1,000,000 people (freedom of speech and right to bear arms)
Murder rate in the UK 14.0 per 1,000,000 people (freedom of speech)
Murder rate in Hong Kong is 5.5 per 1,000,000 people (some limits on freedom)

I agree that the US isn't perfect but those statistics are kind of meaningless without context. The high murder rate isn't necessarily due to freedom of speech and right to bear arms. It may in fact go back to gang warfare and our inability to fully integrate certain aspects of our society. Obviously that's a problem but it's not due to freedoms.

I would like to draw attention to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States which states quite clearly "Americans have the highest income inequality in the rich world and over the past 20–30 years Americans have also experienced the greatest increase in income inequality among rich nations. The more detailed the data we can use to observe this change, the more skewed the change appears to be... the majority of large gains are indeed at the top of the distribution."

Income inequality is a real concern but I think the more relevant statistic is the poverty rate. America has one of the lowest in the world. Should poverty even exist in a country as wealthy as the United States? Absolutely not. But it's not as bad as income inequality may lead you to believe.

Re:At the risk of being labelled flamebait.

[divisionbyzero]

At the risk of feeding a troll I'll give you some brief answers.

Income inequality is a real concern but I think the more relevant statistic is the poverty rate. America has one of the lowest in the world. Should poverty even exist in a country as wealthy as the United States? Absolutely not. But it's not as bad as income inequality may lead you to believe.

So essentially, you choose the statistic that justifies your cause?

No, I chose the one that was the most relevant. It's not obvious why everyone should have the same income (in fact it makes no sense what-so-ever) but it is obvious to me that everyone who does a day's honest work should not be poor.

By the way, the poverty level in United States is about as equal as poverty rate in Iran! (UN estimate from 2000 - 2006) Shocking, isn't it?

Why would that be shocking?

Re:Bang on the nail!

[32771]

That those totalitarian regimes don't all behave like North Korea in terms of enabling internet access amazes me. I guess there is a trade off involved here. If you want to compete with western economies you need something like the internet if you don't want to look like North Korea.
Obviously they think they can keep the net under control. Would be kinda nice if you could have it your way even if it was just to prove them wrong.

Re:Only in China

[SteveFoerster]

Only in China ...would they say that people speaking their mind is spreading political unrest.

Welcome! So, what color is the sky on your planet?

Right. And their point is?

[PPH]

We generate just as much unrest for domestic consumption as is generated (usually by local residents) overseas. But we have a system that is tolerant of dissent and free speach. Think of it as political Darwinism. Our system is more likely to suceed under these stresses that those of China or Iran.

Re:As I have been saying all along

[justinlee37]

Get with the times. Chinese currency was fixed to the dollar for many decades, but sometime in the 90's they fixed it to a basket of world currencies instead, and now the Chinese currency floats openly on the market.

Cool with me!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

China Says US Uses Facebook To Spread Political Unrest

I'm fine with that.

Even if it were so ...

[Kaz Kylheku]

the obvious fix is to stop being a regime that is threatened by political unrest!

If America, et al, are using Facebook to promote political unrest, why are they not worried that this political unrest will backfire on them?

Chinese government logic at work.

what you are saying

[circletimessquare]

is that chinese people like being slaves

this is incompatible with human nature, and saying what you just said renders you incredibly out of touch with reality

Pakistan

[DarthVain]

Fine. Just ban it like Pakistan. Problem solved.

Its not like you have a problem censoring things eh?