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US Gov't Orders 73,000 Private Websites Offline
joeszilagyi sends this excerpt from TorrentFreak:
"... according to the owner of a free WordPress platform which hosts more than 73,000 blogs, his network of sites has been completely shut down on the orders of the authorities. Blogetery.com has been with host BurstNet for 7 months, but on Friday July 9th the site disappeared. ... Due to the fact that the authorities aren't sharing information and BurstNet are sworn to secrecy, it is proving almost impossible to confirm the exact reason why Blogetery has been completely taken down. The owner does, however, admit to handling many copyright-related cease and desists in the past, albeit in a timely manner as the DMCA requires."
The difference is, we are talking about the incident right now.
Bah, that's such bullshit.
China is *bad*. The U.S. is *bad*. But to say that the U.S. is "just as bad" is ridiculous and obviously false. Do even the most casual of checks about free speech rights in the US versus China, and you'll see how silly your statement is.
For all of its many faults, the U.S. has generally outstanding freedom of speech. You can say all kinds of things here that would float anywhere else in the world. Just look at how Holocaust denial is treated in Europe. Or imagine how long someone like Alex Jones could operate in China, railing against the Chinese and thousands of real or imagines murderous conspiracies.
Idunno. For starters, in China, this guy would stand a good chance of being disappeared or shot.
I'll grant that the US does bad things, but when you say things like "just as bad" as China you're basically saying "I am viewing the world in an over-stark black-and-white manner and am thoroughly incapable of understanding nuance, and willfully oblivious to any differing *degrees* of badness".
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Twist it how you want to, but the fact remains that both countries act like assholes and US is in the same level.
Oh my. There differences are many. For starters, the quantity blocked in China versus what could be considered blocked in the United States. In the United States, this sort of thing happens in isolated cases for criminal reasons and the end result is that the website might be vindicated. Point me to one case in China that ended up where the government was wrong. I'm waiting. At least YouTube was vindicated by the government against Viacom. There's some semblance of justice in the United States with regards to blocking websites. In China, it's a bizarre "unharmonious" label or anti-PRC speech that gets you blocked (and oftentimes worse than that).
I could not disagree more with your analogy.
I'm guessing users were trading child porn or the owner wasn't handling his taxes correctly. His user name in the forums is a marketing site between the US and Canada. I'm guessing he could have been pulling down big ad money and not reporting it correctly between the two countries. Hosting websites is a business and businesses always get into trouble. When there's money involved, there's lawyers. And with lawyers come lawsuits and with lawsuits come temporary injunctions.
My work here is dung.
Labeling people as enemy combatants and detaining them without trial sucks and is deplorable. I'd be at a total loss for what to do if I, or someone I cared for, was in that situation. But comparing what happens to a relatively small group of people (GITMO detainees) and what happens to the entire population of China (freedom of speech/access to information) are again, in two totally different leagues. I'm not in any way suggesting I support, let alone tolerate GITMO, but we're talking apples and oranges.
They forgot "weapons of mass destruction" and "baby-cooking recipes".
What you have to understand about China is that their government is an expression of their religious philosophies. They believe that social order is a moral expression, and something worth dying for:
In Confucianism, human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour especially including self-cultivation and self-creation. A main idea of Confucianism is the cultivation of virtue and the development of moral perfection. Confucianism holds that one should give up one's life, if necessary, either passively or actively, for the sake of upholding the cardinal moral values of ren and yi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism
In America, we have a culture that values liberty, which has become quite distorted in modern times. We've also retained some very puritan ideas, which is why nipples are somehow more offensive than gun violence. More recently, our only main moral metric has become profit.
This instance illustrates the point perfectly. Mose Chinese, if begrudgingly, accept the government's right to censor their speech so that the social order is maintained. Most Americans accept the government's right to censor free speech in the interest of profit.
So, if you want to stop the march to DRM and the loss of basic rights in the face of corporate rights to profit, you're going to have to convince fellow Americans that profit isn't the only thing that matters. Good luck with that.
No, it is more like shutting down an entire city because a pawn shop is selling stolen goods.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
This would make me think the Chinese can't. One of many. So, do you think it's all well and good to suppress discourse, so long as somewhere behind a locked door a couple people who trust each other thoroughly might take the risk of actually talking about something?
Fuck you.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
If the pawn shop was allowing the sale of stolen merchandise it doesn't mean every customer was a felon. But if the police shut down the site due to repeated violations, legitimate customers would also not be allowed to go there. Exactly the same with this website service.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Labeling people as enemy combatants and detaining them without trial sucks and is deplorable. I'd be at a total loss for what to do if I, or someone I cared for, was in that situation. But comparing what happens to a relatively small group of people (GITMO detainees) and what happens to the entire population of China (freedom of speech/access to information) are again, in two totally different leagues. I'm not in any way suggesting I support, let alone tolerate GITMO, but we're talking apples and oranges.
The point is we are doing the very things we say we are against when other nations do them.
If terrorists can drive the US government to abandon its principles and find clever ways to justify it, then that's a victory for those terrorists. It's a real shame, for they do not deserve any victory of any sort.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Yea. The 1st Amendment violations here pale in comparison to the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment violations. No warrant? Check. Deprived of property without due process? Check. Specifically NOT informed of the accusations levied against them? Check.
Hell, they just need to quarter some troops in this guy's house and they'll have shitcanned half the Bill Of Rights in one case.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
In China, if you say the wrong things, you can be arrested and then executed. That simply does not happen in the US. There IS a definite difference.
Don't take me for some cheerleader of the US. I'm horrified by other abuses, like warrantless wiretaps and rendition... but that has nothing to do with a real China vs. US rights comparison.
Who said US doesn't pull stunts like China? I think I've heard so many times on slashdot.
US is just as bad. It's just for different interests (protecting the money and cash flow of huge corporations versus ensuring that the people in the country don't start bloody revolts).
Twist it how you want to, but the fact remains that both countries act like assholes and US is in the same level.
Funny. A few years ago when something like this happened, you saw the story and comments here say that Bush was the problem. Now we read that the US is the problem.
Imagine if something like this happened a few short years ago. We'd be looking at a whole different story.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Don't misunderstand, I don't think I'm all that free. Hell, if I start a business, I'll have assholes like you telling me all sorts of shit I can and can't do, because suddenly now I'm not a person with rights, I'm an eeeeevil corporatist fat-cat.
However, it remains that unless I credibly threaten the life, safety or property of a person or group of persons (or represent harmful lies about them as facts, but I can offer the same as opinions), I can say whatever I want. I can prattle on about all the shit I hate about government or society at large with no fear that I will end up getting two hours in a show-trial and then the better part of a decade in prison like He Depu. I may not be as free as I'd like, but I know I'm more free than that poor man is.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
You will always have people telling you what you can and can't do. It's called 'society.' Rational adults realize that we have to make compromises in order to live together in peace and prosperity, while spoiled children continue to whine that no one is the boss of them. If you don't want people telling you what to do, you don't have to live in society. What you don't get to do is to have all of the benefits of living in a cooperative society, while paying none of the costs. That's called 'stealing.'
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little - and it's always somebody else.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
We do compromise on the basis of mutual consent. If you like the deal offered to you by your country, you stay. If you don't, you take your business somewhere else. Just as with any business you can not just walk in, demand what you like, and refuse to pay. What, exactly, do you deem 'tyranny?' I'm guessing tyranny means 'anything I don't want to do,' right? Well, that is not how society works, you do not get to dictate terms to the majority who have already agreed how things will work. You get to take the deal we offer you, or leave it and find a better deal. It is not our fault if the deal you want is not available in the world marketplace of governance.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I've never seen a more breathless defense of the lynch mob.
Your argument while technically true devolves to:
Well Jimbo axe murdered, in cold blood, 100 people and I only murdered one, so we're really a lot different.
Sure, different in that Jimbo in a quantitative sense is worse.
But in a qualitative sense, you're really just the same. [I'd probably be willing to say there's some qualitative difference [between US and China gvmts] too, but I think it's a lot less than most would argue it is.]
What we [the US] has done with Gitmo, Torture, Illegal Wiretaps/Rendition etc - is truly horrific. We don't have any [or much] qualitative difference as to "why" we did it, we just have a smaller pool of people we've done it to.
So, I have a hard time feeling a lot more secure with the US than with China - the only difference is there's at least some check on the government by the people - as long as I'm in a group that's not viewed as "terrorist" I would be difficult to torture or send to Gitmo - the public would decry it.
But the government would be glad to do it once the "cost" [in PR] is reduced.
So, all they have to do is demonetize you or your group and ergo - you get tortured, sent to Gitmo [Bagram] etc.
They [the US Gvmt] certainly doesn't appear to have any moral qualm about doing it, only about the cost. And that doesn't make them much different in a moral sense than the Chinese gvmt.
Cheers
-Greg
How true. In the US, if you say the wrong things or talk to the wrong people, you can just be labelled a terrorist, sent to Gitmo, and tortured for a while:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Saleh_Kahlah_al-Marri
I am officially gone from