Slashdot Mirror
China Calls For Even Firmer Internet Control
eldavojohn writes "Chinese state media has published a long article detailing why China needs to take even firmer stances on sites like Twitter and the internet as a whole, or risk backlash to the Communist Party from 'Internet opinion.' The commentary warned, 'Unless administration is vigorous, criminal forces, hostile forces, terrorist organizations and others could manipulate public sentiment by manufacturing bogus opinion on the Internet, damaging social stability and national security.' China seized upon the London riots recently to justify tighter internet censorship. The article, of course, ends with the conclusion that 'Clearly, in the future when developing and applying new Internet technologies, there must first be a thorough assessment, adopting even more prudent policies and enhancing foresight and forward thinking in administration.' While this provides China with their Emmanuel Goldstein and his Brotherhood, it should be noted that the People's Daily is often over the top."
Yet again, the US bogeyman is used as an excuse for censorship by brutal and repressive governments.
No, the US isn't perfect.
That doesn't excuse mass censorship. Ever.
It's already a police State. Leave China's people alone!
It's not like the US government isn't trying to subvert foreign governments worldwide.
You make this statement as if the U.S. has a monopoly on such tactics. I'm sure you think China is above this kind of stuff.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
We all have to give a big thanks to the previous and current presidents for completely giving up the moral high ground on things like domestic spying and secret prisons. Who knows what these Chinese apologists would point to without your help.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
It's a matter of preference. Most Chinese want that the government controls those that oppose it or try to cause trouble. Same thing as the whole thing with terrorism in the US. China had a troublesome 1900's. Now there's finally peace, and Chinese want to maintain it. They support government with that. Why does US think they can dictate what other people choose?
Because they aren't choosing.
"Most Chinese?" When was the last genuine competitive election held in Mainland China?
Yes, they are. Have you actually lived there? It's the same thing here on slashdot always when talking about countries little bit different than US. I've lived many times and many years in Thailand, yet every time there's some slashdot news about internet censorship in there, whole slashdot goes on a knee-jerk reaction telling how the government is being abusive. The truth is that the people want it. Same thing when talking about how it's unlawful to talk badly about the Thai King. Somehow in slashdot it's viewed somehow as that he made the law. It was the people who wanted it.
Do whatever you want in your own country, but don't go telling other countries how they should be. Let their people choose. If you want to comment about it, do get some actual own experience.
And you could say exactly the same about US. It's always the students who oppose government and as people grow older they understand the issues. It's the same in China, it's the same in US, and it's the same pretty much everywhere in the world.
Yes, they are. Have you actually lived there? It's the same thing here on slashdot always when talking about countries little bit different than US. I've lived many times and many years in Thailand, yet every time there's some slashdot news about internet censorship in there, whole slashdot goes on a knee-jerk reaction telling how the government is being abusive. The truth is that the people want it. Same thing when talking about how it's unlawful to talk badly about the Thai King. Somehow in slashdot it's viewed somehow as that he made the law. It was the people who wanted it. Do whatever you want in your own country, but don't go telling other countries how they should be. Let their people choose. If you want to comment about it, do get some actual own experience.
Sure, and a crackhead quite sincerely wants more crack. That doesn't mean this is good for him to have. Sometimes people want things that aren't good for them to have and don't serve their best interests. This is nothing new. There is nothing wrong with being opposed to this in principle.
Having said that, I agree that sovereign nations should be left alone as much as possible. The only justification for interference is when they directly and unambiguously threaten us. The whole problem with the US is that it loves to meddle. All or nearly all problems the US has ever had with terrorism or with attacks against Americans who are overseas or with its terrible reputation in many parts of the world is because we simply refuse to leave other nations alone. The US is a domineering empire that tries very hard not to call itself that.
Can you imagine how the US would react to a foreign nation that wants to establish a military presence within its borders and dictate how it should be governed? Or a foreign nation that uses its secret agencies (CIA equivalent) to try to cause chaos and disrupt its election processes? I have the funny feeling they wouldn't like it one bit. Why, they might even want to get back at anyone who tries it.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Err, what people say out loud in a totalitarian state is not a good indicator of anything at all.
Your comparison fails because the people in China do not get to choose anything. Thailand is at least democratic.
If even 1% of the population hate them then whether those people can rant about it on Twitter is basically irrelevant... ten million Chinese can kick out the government at any time.
Oh, but hang on: if those 1% who hate the government are spending their time ranting about it on Twitter then they won't be out in the streets burning things down. So the government should be encouraging people to use Twitter rather than get angry in the real world. Maybe this is reverse psychology where they talk about the evils of Twitter so that anyone who's anti-government wastes that energy ranting to their friends?
I wasn't aware that they got FOX News in China... :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
v. "manipulate public sentiment by manufacturing bogus opinion on the Internet"; see Tienanmen Square
I8-D
"Everyone loves us. See? There's nothing negative said about us online."
"What about this right here."
"Hold on a second. *delete* What right where?"
"You're right. The people love us!"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
that the worldwide million geek army disagrees. If they should choose to fight them, well , good luck.
A million geeks versus ~619 million "fit for military service" in the People's Liberation Army?
Sorry, but I'm buying Chinese on that one, despite my personal feelings about their government.
It is long past time that we put on the ability to control access. If you look carefully at China's internet controls, they can be used EITHER way. It can be used to control their outbound, but it can also be used as a wall. With this approach, China is building a wall, but will have first strike capability on Western Computers. Now, if it only took out simply company and personal computers, no big deal. HOWEVER, it is not. Even our seperate networks are done virtually. Some ppl say that vlans are secure, but nothing could be further from the truth. Verizon, ATT, and Qwest have outsourced a great deal. Verizon in particular, makes HEAVY use of Chinese admins. Insane that we would do that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's not like the US government isn't trying to subvert foreign governments worldwide
Not the Chinese government, as it turns out. Unlike the USSR, the Chinese are such an important trading partner that we cannot afford to watch China go through any sort of revolution. Sure, when it comes to countries that are not big trading partners, the US government is gung-ho about pushing for "regime change" and "democratization," but I don't think China has much to worry about.
Palm trees and 8
I was recently trying to get some Hurricane Irene damage information from China.
It was hard to do.
An incredible number of links are blocked, often for no apparent reason.
* Any host with "blog" as a substring of the name seems to be blocked.
* Most, but not all, URLs with "video" in them are blocked.
* Youtube is blocked.
* Restricting a Google search to "past week" or "past month" somehow triggers blocking.
Note, that all this is stuff that is (presumably) unintentionally blocked. I wasn't trying to get
information that China would have any reason to restrict. It's just that they are so afraid of
other information that they block indiscriminately.
Things were somewhat more open during OL in 2008.
Because they aren't choosing correctly.
FTFY
Ok so Anonymous goes after BART for shutting down a few privately owned cell phone repeaters. But does nothing against China and all of the Free Speech bs that they pull?
Protesting/hacking BART only inconvenienced the train riders that had nothing to do with the shutdown; however, Anonymous could look like they're doing something usefull by going after China...
A bit of Robin Hood if you will..
The only justification for interference is when they directly and unambiguously threaten us. The whole problem with the US is that it loves to meddle.
This "meddling" you abhor is intended to head off the germination of groups and governments that can eventually "directly and unambiguously threaten us." And by "threaten" I mean militarily, politically, or economically. The alternative is to allow a potential threat to grow unchallenged until it's so big that it can't be stopped without massive casualties, consequences, or costs (or all three). The last time everybody sat around and let a threat grow unchallenged, about 60 million people died in a war that lasted the better part of six years. Isolationism's been tried before. It doesn't work very well for the defender. It does, however, work very, very well for those planning to do harm to others.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Its only 10 million strong if the 10 million know about each other. Banning communication channels like twitter takes away an avenue for organization.
Certain international observers cannot find an answer to this question: How did China make such remarkable progress in such a short time? "The socialist system with Chinese characteristics, which fully embodies the distinctive features and strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics, is a fundamental institutional guarantee of the development and progress of contemporary China," Hu Jintao uncovered the reasons for China's remarkable progress in his speech marking the Party's 90th birthday on July 1.
Of course manipulating your own currency and ensuring your workers make sub-standard wages with a little dose of ignoring certain building standards when making bridges (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6945301.stm) and acting like usurpers and counter insurgents are poisoning your international baby milk products for export (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1841535,00.html) does a lot to spread FUD. Those poor, misunderstood commie bastard Chinese.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
The Chinese government has always been interesting. On one hand they try to maintain an image as a normal, 21st century non-totalitarian state while on the other they are running a dictatorship. What I've always found to be impressive is that even with fairly loose travel restrictions people still return from western countries back to China.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
oh and yeah, we can say the US isn't perfect here without reprisal.
2008
they can't swim or have a navy.......
Have you ever played Paranoia? If not, it's a really funny RPG. Ok, it was a funny RPG until it became kinda too close to home.
One of the fun parts is that everyone is a mutant. And being a mutant is illegal. Everyone hates the Computer. And hating the Computer is illegal. Everyone is a member of a secret society (but they're all out to sabotage the Computer in some way, essentially, they have the same goals). And secret societies are illegal. What makes the game a riot is that everyone tries his best to hide his mutation, hide his loyalty to his secret society and pretends to love the Computer. Why? Because everyone does it. And everyone is trying to prove that someone else is a mutant, a member of a secret society and hates the Computer to rise in the ranks so they get more leeway and are under less surveillance, as well as getting better equipment. Of course, with the goal to hide their mutation, help their secret society and secretly sabotage the Computer's work.
It stops being a fun game when you notice that there are people who play it in real life. It's usually the game people play at work.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Right, it heads off horrible things like democracy in places where it'd be inconvenient.
it's nice to get a glimpse of the underlying totalitarian foundations of China. what a strange situation - sort of an inverse Potemkin village with most of the country participating in the world economy "for show", while a tiny, reclusive core of government holds all the strings. obviously, that core is not aiming the country on a path of western-style individual liberty. engagement with the West is just a practical technique to fill a billion mouths, to let the west provide advanced technology that can't somehow be withdrawn.
is their thought that some day, China will have gotten enough benefit from the West, and so will stop the charade, flip the switch and resume a normal (for Chinese history) top-down, Mao-wears-the-cap-with-the-ruby-button empire?
It's not like some media here are calling for the same. Along with some politicians. Usually you get to see such a test balloon every now and then, just to test the waters and see how much of an outcry it causes. If it's not too bad, proceed. If it is, wait a year before you push it again.
Or hope for some bomb to explode somewhere, some riots to break out or something else that allows you to call for more control of any medium that normal people can use to voice their opinion to more people than their immediate peers.
Because that's essentially the big threat to any government, not just the Chinese. You can silence the "normal" media. They are few, and easily controlled. Either bluntly, like my government does (calling it "media subsidiaries", and handing it out only to those "worthy", take a wild guess which ones are), or more subtly, with "media control" that turns a blind eye when line-toeing media show a few nipples where they don't belong while shutting down critical networks if they only as much as forget to bleep the "wrong" words.
Now try that with the internet. It's like playing whack a mole, you silence one and two cry out over just that silencing, let alone the rest of your wrongdoings. Plus, if everything fails, they sit somewhere where you can't silence them because what they do is in the interest of the country they blog and twitter from.
Of course, this can be done in a police state like China. And it serves as a test of our liberty. If we need to protect our liberty by limiting it by shutting down and blocking out parts of the internet that are deemed "not appropriate", we have lost it already. And we're by no means any better than China.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
....Made by Shah of Iran, Mubarak, Gaddafi, Stalin, Saddam... The people do indeed prefer
what they have, the system in place, to anarchy, violence, chaos, and disorder. They have been under the status quo for so long, they cannot imagine a world without the Party which isn't chaos, anarchy, and disorder.
Argument makes a lot of sense and works very well, except that you will be the first against the wall come the revolution.
Gently reply
China is a bit unusual as they haven't given up on the first approach and adopted the third like almost every other state. Perhaps they realize that their state couldn't maintain the illusion of an open and clean government by western ideals, and that free flow of information tends to normalize world views, so even the Chinese would start questioning their government.
The only justification for interference is when they directly and unambiguously threaten us. The whole problem with the US is that it loves to meddle.
This "meddling" you abhor is intended to head off the germination of groups and governments that can eventually "directly and unambiguously threaten us." And by "threaten" I mean militarily, politically, or economically. The alternative is to allow a potential threat to grow unchallenged until it's so big that it can't be stopped without massive casualties, consequences, or costs (or all three). The last time everybody sat around and let a threat grow unchallenged, about 60 million people died in a war that lasted the better part of six years. Isolationism's been tried before. It doesn't work very well for the defender. It does, however, work very, very well for those planning to do harm to others.
Yes, that's the fear-based orthodoxy preached by those who wish to justify the imperialism err I mean meddling. You make this mistake of thinking I don't understand it when in fact I simply disagree with it.
And naturally we're either complete meddlers who have no respect for anyone else, or we're totally isolationist and have no input towards the rest of the world at all. You know why isolationism failed? Because it was practiced in its extreme form. All I want is for us to stop bullying other nations, to stop using the CIA to overthrow democratically elected governments, to stop things like the mass murder of South Americans so we can have a fucking fruit company, and to understand that there is a definite, positive connection between treating other nations as playthings and having lots of people who desperately want to harm you.
Wanting to trade with other nations in an equitable fashion, having ambassadors and engaging in diplomacy with them to try to reach mutually satisfying agreements, and respecting their decision when they tell you "no" is not isolationist, at least not the definition of it you seem to have been taught. It's really amazing the way you can go a whole decade without a pointless overseas war when you do things this way. You know what really harms others? When you actively create your own enemies just so you can justify continuing to feed your military-industrial complex.
You know why so much of the world hates Americans? They think the American government represents the wishes of the American people. It's hard to blame them. We definitely like to preach about how our government is "by the people, of the people, for the people".
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Its their country if that is what they want why should I be boo-hooing over the loss of china twitter? what the fuck ever
.nt
heh reminds me of being a kid with video games. I would spend a week figuring something out, show it to a buddy who always came back with "whats the big deal, does not seem that hard"
well no fucking shit dude I just showed you how to do the magic trick, maybe next time you can figure it out for your self.
yes because no human has ever organized a massive event without twitter ...
Right, it heads off horrible things like democracy in places where it'd be inconvenient.
Hey now, British Petroleum needs to get it's oil somewhere, doesn't it? So what if it involves orchestrating the overthrowing of a democratically elected leader for an ineffectual puppet monarchy that abuses it's citizens? That's the price you pay for freedom!
America! Fuck Yeah!
"Can you imagine how the US would react to a foreign nation that wants to establish a military presence within its borders and dictate how it should be governed?" Not well. Of course the US has no need for any foreign military bases unlike quite a few countries in the world. If any foreign military wanted to force the issue they should remember that the US public is armed better than the military when it comes to ground fighting. The governments currently hosting a military presence usually denounce the bases in public but in private beg the military to stay. If any country in the world demanded that the US leave they would. All this would require is an agreement between the hosting government and it's citizens to make the request. The US would have no choice and would leave. Of course any country that did this better hope they don't need any US military support in the future because chances are the only assistance from the US would be a friendly worded diplomatic note wishing them good luck and future prosperity. "we simply refuse to leave other nations alone" 100% horseshit. The US gets hammered when it gets involved and gets just as hammered when it doesn't get involved. I am personally rooting for a military non-interference policy for any situation located more than 500 miles outside of the US borders. Let the rest of the world take care of their own problems for a change. If nothing else it would be highly entertaining to see what happens.
You can never stop the signal.
But they're not choosing! I had a conversation related to this about countries implementing sharia law. If a country wants to implement sharia, they can knock themselves out, I have no big deal as long as the whole country gets a choice about it. If people want to implement a system of government where why have a cadre of hand-picked leaders working without accountability to its people to try and preserve peace after several hundreds (thousands?) of years of strife, then that's their choice.
The problem ends up that usually the people who get to make the choices aren't the ones who end up with the short end of the stick. Slaveowners in the south probably loved the system they had going on, but the people who didn't like it didn't get a say in the matter.
-Bucky
Reminds me of a fun story:
A while ago, I a friend of mine's grandmother (who grew up in china and moved here during the deng xiaopeng (sp?) era) was cleaning out her place and came across her little red book from forever ago. She got really mad and wanted to throw it away, so naturally we were curious why/ To her, Mao was led astray by the gang of four and all the writings in there weren't actually Mao's but was from the GoF trying to corrupt the state. She really sincerely believed it, which from what I've heard is the view of most people from that era.
-Bucky
The problem is that in china, they probably have as many people watching the internet for traffic about meeting up as there are "revolutionaries". Remember at the beginning of the arab uprisings when people tried to organize flashmobs? Wherever they decided to meet would be FLOODED with police beforehand.
Hell, my friends in shanghai have to get a permit to have an expat book-club meeting because they have more than 30 people who show up.
-Bucky
I think his point is that US meddling in affairs of foreign countries (including China) is certainly a reasonable concern for those countries. Chinese meddling in affairs of other countries is also reasonable concern for those countries, but that isn't China's problem.
So, basically, defense against potential propaganda war is a logical pretext for Net filtering (ignoring other issues, such as human rights), and not necessarily fake.
I don't think so. Their capitalism is not really "charade" - sure, the guys on top eye it closely to prevent anyone from straying too far away from "interests of the state", but by and large it still works as capitalism should, and the reason they have it internally is because it's better at feeding those mouths than Mao's traditionalist state-planned command economy was. This isn't some new idea - similar approaches were used with great success in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, for example.
Problem is that, for a long time, our political theory has stated that capitalism inevitably brings democracy due to the rise of educated middle class. I think that China will prove us wrong in that you can have capitalism and middle class - and all benefits that brings to your economy - while still retaining authoritarian political structure.
wikileaks? I saw it on the goddammed TV broadcasts!
Even if the people are better off materially than in the past, eventually they will ask the question: Why are we allowing these unelected, unaccountable people tell us what to do?
The problem is that, with modern communication framework, it is relatively easy to give the outward appearances (i.e. elections and so forth) while retaining effective control. Indeed, Western world has been heading that way for a while now, even if we're still a long way from China. If you let people elect freely, but filter all their communications so that they get the message you want them to get, why wouldn't they re-elect you?
Not when they can't even compete due to continually being an expansion pack behind while they take the time to censor out culturally offensive crap!
I don't know... a protracted internet guerilla war could make the Chinese lose alot of face, while giving the People's Liberation Army no cohesive army to fight. This "firmer stance" is intended to prevent exactly such a war.
So I'm not sure who I'd bet on.
We are talking about 2000 innocent people being gunned down. It doesn't matter that it was on Tienanmen Square or not it . It happened.
Indeed they don't deny it , why should they : fear serves them well.
Slipping shoelaces ?
Oh it's the same whatever we say bullshit that other governments use.... well never mind then. I can get that from a six year old.
Plus they're willing to say what I say until I give up... that's like circular logic++!
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything."
That's the problem with censorship: after it goes to effect, you can't really say anything about what people want, because the information you would need to do so is being manipulated.
Western countries do have quite a bit of experience with dictatorship and tyranny. On the other hand, China has no experience with freedom and democracy. So I'd say that we have every right to comment on China.
In any case, I think there's a certain period in history where transition from tyranny to freedom is possible; specifically, when mass communication first starts to develop through printing press. Before that, there's no way to educate the masses; soon after, technology advances to the point where communications can be easily monitored. At that point, if democracy hasn't taken firm enough root, it's too late, and dictatorship will continue, possibly forever. Time will tell if us Western democracies survive the current test; but China missed its chance and will remain a hellhole forever.
All of which, of course, means that we should start systematically severing our economic ties to China. We can't help them up - and, according to you, we shouldn't even try - but they can bring us down.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It's not like the US government isn't trying to subvert foreign governments worldwide. It's a reasonable concern. On the other hand, banning things like twitter isn't going to fix the problem.
Yeah right, like China is the last bastion of freedom and free speech.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Yet again, the US bogeyman is used as an excuse for censorship by brutal and repressive governments. No, the US isn't perfect. That doesn't excuse mass censorship. Ever.
Just because America is the best country on this planet, it doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Yes because that's exactly what I implied.
yes actually it is, that somehow banning communication channels is going to stop millions of people from organization.
news flash, we have not had much trouble doing it for the last few thousand years
Explain where I said its going to stop them from organizing. I said it "takes away an avenue for organization". You've got a point to make, that Twitter isn't important and hasn't had any impact on modern politics or political movements, and you're looking for any excuse to make it.
no I am not making an excuse to make it, I could not care less about twitter
my fucking point is (since your too god damned dense to figure this out yourself) is who the fuck cares if they take away avenues like twitter, its not going to stop or change anything its not even going to make an impact cause its been done a thousand times before in our history.
now are we done beating this dead horse?