Slashdot Mirror
China Blanks Nobel Peace Prize Searches
1 a bee writes "CNN is reporting that China is attempting to block all communication regarding Peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Even texting is affected: 'Text-messaging on mobile phones is not immune from censors, either. A Shanghai-based netizen, @littley, tweeted his unfortunate experience: "My SIM card just got de-activated, turning my iPhone to an iPod touch after I texted my dad about Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize."' Might as well add Slashdot to the censored list."
Further coverage is available from NBC.
China is just trying to protect it's citizens against the terrorist and child porn. Sheesh.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
In an effort to pre-empt any assumptions about access to information, I am in China and I have been able to access news sources and most articles online using Google News and various Western media outlets linked therein. Searches seem to be filtered by key-word, but most Chinese are aware of the award. Honestly, most of them don't care that much. They all know that the award often carries a political agenda. See: Barack Obama. Some feel it's just the West finding new ways to apply pressure to China on these issues where there has been long-standing disagreement. They are aware of the news though.
Mainly, I think the government is trying to avoid any large gatherings, unrest, or protests in the wake of this decision. We'll see what happens.
I've never had a problem accessing Slashdot from here. Some of the linked articles, yes, but not Slashdot itself. *ducks*
~A~
And it's as boring as fuck and written by men scared of pork products. Next?! I love bacon. Where's your silly "god" now? 666, Hail Satan!!1!
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Somebody ought to write an exploit for Chinese iPhones and Android based phones that autotexts the name "Liu Xiaobo" to everyone in a person's contact list, then goes on to force their phone to do the same thing. Within a matter of days the entire population of the two most popular smartphone platforms in China would have their favorite toys censored. I am pretty sure that could cause an effective public outrage.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Dear China,
Fuck you and your backward, stultifying Communist state!
P.S. Do you have 4 trillion to loan us so we can extend our tax cuts?
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
I've heard it said that much of the Chinese government's restrictions on free speech, protest, etc. are to maintain social stability.
Is that an ideal that's especially resonant with the Chinese culture for some reason? If so, why?
Or is it a transparent attempt to maintain power (stability = keeping the same people/party in power)? Or is it both?
Kinda like announcing that a soldier who died by friendly fire actually died a heroic death? Or quietly putting a priest out to pasture so people won't figure out that he's been molesting children?
People in power do this kind of crap all the time. The only difference is the degree and the extremes they'll go to.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In 1989, we watched in horror as the Chinese government murdered 3,000 students for the crime of asking for a Democratic government.
A lot of us tried to boycott China after that for fear of making those bloody monsters even more rich and powerful
We were shouted down. "We have to trade with China. As China grows wealthier, the wealth will trickle down to their middle class, who will then rise up and demand basic human rights and freedoms. As we trade with China, as we stregnthen their middle classes, China will be dragged into joining the civilized world."
It didn't quite work out that way. China still has no real middle class, though ours has been decimated. The Chinese government started executing prisoners and selling their organs for profit, but that uprising of the newly-empowered middle classes still didn't happen.
So where is this "Enlightenment Through Trade?" China took that money, and used it to build a military that they're now threatening Japan with. They're kidnapping Toyota executives and holding manufacturing hostage with the market corner they've got on rare earth elements.
We've sacrificed our manufacturing base to this idea that a richer China is a friendlier China.
Really? How do you explain this?
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/870490--chinese-dissident-tipped-for-nobel-peace-prize
"Last Dec. 25 her husband was sentenced to 11 years behind bars, after being found guilty of trying to incite others to subvert state power.
Liu was the lead author of a document called Charter '08, calling for multi-party elections in China, where the Communist Party keeps a lock grip on power."
Why are we still doing business with these monsters?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Seems like a bassackwards solution to me. There's plenty of things the government should be taking care of that they're not, and plenty of things that they should be doing, and are, but in an unnecessarily inefficient way. Rather than gunning for more inefficiency so that the government can't do things they shouldn't, which they seem to manage to do just fine anyway, why not elect leaders and enact laws that prevent the abuse from happening in the first place?
Advocating increased inefficiency as the solution to bad government is like saying that you can't run very well in clown shoes so we can lower the crime rate by making everyone wear clown shoes so they can't get away from the cops. It doesn't really address the root of the problem, barely addresses the symptoms and brings a host of new problems along for the ride.
I've heard it said that much of the Chinese government's restrictions on free speech, protest, etc. are to maintain social stability.
Is that an ideal that's especially resonant with the Chinese culture for some reason? If so, why?
My take.
China has historically been a unitarian state. And no matter how you look at it, China is a *huge* country, and for a thousand years or so, the only one that actually managed to more or less hold itself together. Most other large empires simply dissolved into smaller states within a relatively short period.
And thus, particularly when China become "united" under one government during the Qin-Han periods (around 200BC), most of the scholars and intellectuals were concerned how to make this huge behemoth government work. There were quite a few schools of thought, mostly adapting and refining the ideas that floated around in earlier periods. I describe the two mainstream ones:
The "legalists" believed in rule *by* law, using incentives and punishments to make people keep in line with the government and boosting government efficiency. And by "punishment", I mean harsh punishments such as body mutilations for those who do not obey. The ruler sits on top of this system, and is above it, and is the only one who steers it. Everyone else is subject to the law.
The "confucians" believed in "cultural education", or what I call "propaganda". They sought to achieve social harmony by advocating obedience and subservience to higher authorities, and maintaining a strict social hierarchy consisting of the Emperor at the top, then various nobility and officials in the middle, then the commoners. The commoners would defer authority to higher ups, and in turn, the authorities should treat the commoners as if they were their children.
It should be obvious from the above why the idea of free speech never developed. The only kind of open political disagreement allowed was between high officials, and between high officials and the Emperor. Historically, it is a *virtue* for officials to admonish and risk being executed by the Emperor. I'm not kidding you. Historically, the price of speaking the truth, speaking for justice, speaking for a better society, is risk of death if your views happen to be different from the ruler.
It is under these conditions that Chinese culture developed. And historically, when China was divided into different states or factions, there were constant wars between those states. Millions if not billions of people are killed in these civil wars, and they happen *every time* the government is not strong enough to hold the nation together.
This is the only reason why the Chinese people have tolerated authoritarian governments one by one -- yes it's bad, but the alternatives simply stink.
I hope that answers your question.
Don't quote me on this.