China Starts Censoring Phone Calls Mid Sentence

bhagwad writes "Several reports have emerged that China is cutting off phone calls mid-sentence when contentious words like 'protest' are used. Seems like China's draconian censorship regime is going into overdrive with even more sophisticated censoring. Of course, this comes on the heels of Google accusing them of mucking around with Gmail as well."

Comments

That irony can be so ironic sometimes

[elrous0]

The New York Times publishes an article about China's great firewall, and puts it behind a firewall.

[The rest of this post is censored, to make it truly meta]

Re:That irony can be so ironic sometimes

[hoggoth]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a dumptruck full of Hitlers being driven by the Hulk.
Wait, what are we talking about?

In the USA ...

[jdgeorge]

... dropping calls in mid-sentence is simply known as "using AT&T wireless service". Zing!

Who cares?

[sgage]

90% of our stuff here in the US is from China. It's cheap. That's all that matters. Mass censorship, brutal putdowns of dissent, etc. - none of that matters. Real Konsumerism Politik, don't cha know.

There will be no riots, a la Tunisia. Well, maybe for about 5 minutes. Who cares? As long as we get our cheap stuff from China.

Re:Who cares?

[mlts]

It does for the Chinese. It strengthens them and weakens the West. There will be a point where they won't need to continue exporting cheap stuff, where they have not just resources and wealth, but technology.

Then, expect to see some really nasty things happen:

First, there is the low hanging fruit, Taiwan. This little island has been a prize just out of reach, and it is only a matter of time before China gets bold enough to annex them. Think the US would start a nuclear conflict over an island? Won't happen. It is only a matter of time before this becomes just as part of China as Hong Kong did.

South Korea is also a prize, and having their puppet to the north start a protracted conflict in order to cripple the Western economy by a thorough shelling of Seoul would be a major military coup. China wouldn't even be faulted if state of the art weaponry (both conventional and nuclear) managed to appear in the DPRK. The US involved in North Korea also means another theater of war that the West has to fight but China doesn't.

It would almost be trivial for China to cripple the Western economy in just 24 hours by a two pronged attack (overrunning Taiwan and getting Kim to shell his southern neighbor), with little to no threat of retaliation from the US. China knows this, and the only thing stopping them from this is because they still have intelligence to gain from Western businesses and a benefit from one-sided trade practices.

Re:Who cares?

[Chowderbags]

Nobody knows China's last 150 years of history, which was basically one disaster after another. The nation was divided and without a common language, and Mao united the people under one flag, stopped the wars of province against province, and gave the people the gift of a common language that could unite their diverse cultures.

And then promptly enacted economic reforms that caused tens of millions of deaths! Besides, it's not like some cultures want to not be part of China (*cough* Tibet. *cough* Uyghurs.).

First-hand testimony:

[bwayne314]

Chinese grad student sitting next to me: "That happened 5 years ago, this is not news, this is the job my friend has, writing this software, that is what the supercomputer is for"

Re:Why would tha happen? Entirely different situat

[ElectricTurtle]

You're conflating collectivism with autocracy. Dynastic China (which, CCP brainwashing regardless, is still the foundation of Chinese culture) was rarely collectivistic. Wang Mang tried that and was killed for it. China has always been autocratic, which is why its flirtation with democracy in the first half of the 20th century was doomed to failure (even Chinese of the period could see it coming, like Dr. Lin Yutang).

Even after the ROC was consolidated after the warlord years and more-or-less stabilized after the evacuation to Taiwan, it was as democratic as any single party 3rd world country could be for another few decades, which is to say practically not at all. The ROC demonstrates that in order for the Chinese to ever actually achieve democracy, they'll first have to pretend to be democratic for several generations. (A perspective which I think is borne out by analogues in Hong Kong and Singapore.)

People don't understand how at a very, very deep level the whole of Chinese society is used to this as normal. From the burning books and burying scholars of the Qin dynasty and the destruction of the hundred schools of thought through to the literary purges of the Qing, censorship by no less than immediate death was completely normal in dynastic China. Qianlong was held in high regard by many as a model Confucian emperor even though he killed many in literary purges. Even in the republic, both before and after the Chinese Civil war there was brutal quashing of dissent by the KMT including many executions, and I don't even need to talk about the PRC's heinous history.

It's hard to explain to Westerner who have not studied Chinese history that to the average Chinese adult, public dissenters are perceived not as underdog heroes but as people who are abnormal bordering on insane. There is a reason why the CCP is always going on about 'harmony'. It is a direct appeal to Confucian ideals of social harmony and balance between the people and state which is achieved essentially without resorting to dissent but rather through long suffering.

The point of censorship

[DragonWriter]

From what I've read, the Chinese people generally support their country's censorship

Yes, effective censorship assures that what you read from the people subject to it is consistent with the viewpoint the censoring entity wishes to hace expressed, while contrary messages are suppressed.That's the whole point of censorship.