Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

China Calls Out US On Internet Freedom

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the there-can-be-only-one dept.

rsmiller510 writes "In an interesting case of the pot calling the kettle black, the Chinese government released a report criticizing the US government of being hypocrites where Internet freedom was concerned — criticizing others for cracking down, yet circling the wagons when it involves US internal security (WikiLeaks anyone?). And the Chinese might have a point."

16 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Do as we say, not as we do!! by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you keep saying the U.S. isn't all about freedom, we'll bomb the shit out of you!

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  2. Hah! by Microlith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    China shouldn't be calling anyone a hypocrite. As furious the barking in Washington has been there's no bite, and nothing compares to China's outright abuse of its people and efforts to censor the internet.

    1. Re:Hah! by hedwards · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That was my thought, as outraged as I am about the way Wikileaks has been handled, and that's quite a bit, it's a much less serious problem than what countries like China engage in.

    2. Re:Hah! by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wikileaks is being handled the way it is, not because its an internet security or censorship issue, but because it's a military security issue with diplomatic security tacked on.

      What do you think the PLA would do to a Chinese Bradley Manning who copied hundreds of thousands of documents?

      Really think he'd be in pre-trial confinement still?

    3. Re:Hah! by thisnamestoolong · · Score: 3, Insightful

      China has never claimed to be anything but repressive, though. The U.S. has always claimed to fully support freedom of speech, yet is repressing speech. So, U.S. = hypocrites, China != hypocrites. This is not to say, however, that the U.S. suppression of speech is anywhere even close to the suppression in China.

      --
      To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
    4. Re:Hah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      China isn't a hypocrite here, the U.S. actually is. China knows they censor, but they also don't crusade around the world telling other countries that it's bad to do. This is not the pot calling the kettle black here, this is more like the kid who got bullied finally standing up to the bully. This is China finally calling attention to the hypocrisy of the U.S., who have sat upon their high horse telling anyone else in the world that they shouldn't do bad things, all the while doing the same things themselves in the background.

      I'll grant you that the U.S. censorship hasn't been anywhere near the level of China's, but for a country that screams about ANY censorship being bad elsewhere in the world, ANY amount of it here at home makes the U.S. a big hypocrite.

    5. Re:Hah! by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      nothing compares to China's outright abuse of its people

      Ironically, the United States currently imprisons more people than China, and most of those prisoners are not violent offenders. Yes, the Chinese have a record of abuses, but that does not exonerate the United States.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    6. Re:Hah! by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Protecting citizens from dangerous ideas like democratic reform. It's a fairly simple dichotomy, the US censors to retain economic power, while China censors to retain political power. In the end it's always about power.

      --
      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
    7. Re:Hah! by tnk1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. Bradley Manning did something that would be illegal, no matter what his justification, if it happened how it is supposed to have gone down. He didn't have the right to release any of that material. If he did that in China, he'd be in pre-execution detention right now, if they even wait that long.

      I don't know what people expect the military to do if someone just goes off and decides to release material, slap them on the wrist? He knew what he was doing, it's not like it was some sort of accidental release. Even if he did it out of conscience and perhaps rates a pardon or something, he still has to go through the process and no one with a clearance does not know what the process and penalties are.

      I can buy that some people might consider his actions heroic. I don't, but that's mostly because I think how he went about it was reckless. Sure, people may not have died because of the release, but he did absolutely nothing to make sure that wasn't the case first. Without care being taken with actions like these, even the best of intentions can backfire into something that no one could ever dream of. I think his point could have easily been made with less material, more carefully selected.

      It's not going to be up to me what happens to him, but I don't see any reason he shouldn't be in Ft. Leavenworth for a few years, unless the trial brings up information that I am not already aware of.

      More to the point, his treatment does not even come close to making the US anything like China. I can buy that the US might be held more to account because it holds higher standards, but you have to disclose the fact that you really are using two different standards. Otherwise, you are perpetuating an inaccuracy. When you compare China the to US, you are comparing apples to oranges and you can't just make blanket statements that equate them.

    8. Re:Hah! by fudoniten · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, actually, the US imprisons a lot of people, relative to any other non-totalitarian country. That includes China.

      Relative to their population, China does not execute anywhere close to that many people. That'd be a significant percent of their population.

    9. Re:Hah! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

      China wouldn't go to war, it's bad for the economy - and they don't really care that much what the rest of the world thinks of them. No, they'd just make sure the documents were never spoken of domestically except in hushed whispers - first by making sure their equivilent of Manning was tried and executed (It's no good disappearing him, the people have to know about it), and then by making it clear that any reporter or even blogger who so much as mentions the contents of the documents faces many years in jail. It should go without saying that any forign site that published them or discussion of them would go on the blacklist, and I imagine they'd put key phrases from the documents on the filter too to ensure any new copies are swiftly detected and blocked likewise.

  3. China is doing with the Soviets did by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    During the Cold War, the Soviet Union pointed to the civil rights issues, the freedom rides, the riots, excess of authority to argue that the US had no place in criticizing the Soviet Union for invading Hungary, Czechoslovakia or pushing the crack down on Poland.

    Because racial tensions are equal to invading other countries.

    China is just pointing at the US to justify it's own censorship.

  4. proportionality by circletimessquare · · Score: 1, Insightful

    scale

    context

    some of the mental concepts you will find missing from those in the west who draw a false equivalency between the usa's crimes concerning internet freedom and the chinese

    but most importantly, you will find them, freely and openly criticising their government, without fear of reprisal. unlike in china

    so if listening to mentally subpar cranks on the internet equate china and the usa in illogical ways, i accept that as a price to pay for freedom of political expression

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  5. The appropriate response by Atmchicago · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And the appropriate response to the Soviet Union would be "You're right, we have civil rights issues. Racism is terrible, and we'll try to fix these issues." And to our credit, we have come a long way. In addition, we should respond "Hey guys, quit invading other countries!" (never mind the fact that the US continues to invade countries to this day...)

    In this case, again, we should take a good look at the criticisms and not ignore them because of the messenger. Maybe we are doing a bad job of preserving internet freedoms, and should work to fix them. Maybe China is also doing a bad job.

    --

    You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.

  6. Re:Is this really a pot/kettle thing? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Guess which country I'm talking about.

    Is this the same country which has "designated free speech zones" so they can keep dissenting opinions in fenced off areas away from everyone else?

    Or the one that allows your laptop to be arbitrarily seized at the border?

    Or how about keeping prisoners without trial or recourese in a foreign country using a ginned up judicial system so they can get around their own laws and procedures?

    How about one whose Attorney General posited that things like Habeus Corpus don't apply to people who aren't citizens?

    Sadly, over the last bunch of years, there have been a fair few instances of America having a "do as I say, not as I do" attitude.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  7. Incarceration rate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Indeed, the incarceration rate is a key indicator (if not THE key indicator) of a government's overall respect for human rights in practice (not in theory which is a useless bullshit measurement).

    The fact that the US government incarcerates more individuals per population than any other country in the world speaks volumes about the reality of the situation, as does the fact that the vast majority of prisoners are non-violent and were emprisoned not for crimes against other human beings, but merely crimes against the state.