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China Using Net Censorship As a Trade Weapon?
angry tapir writes "The Chinese government is using Internet censorship as a trade weapon against U.S. tech companies trying to do business there. China's ongoing censorship of the Internet is applied unevenly, with foreign companies often facing stricter rules than their Chinese counterparts, said Ed Black, president and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, to the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China. (Of course, a lot of countries aren't thrilled by U.S. net censorship efforts.)"
They took yer job, U.S. government!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This just in: China still operates under non-trivially mercantilist policies; US continues to cede moral high ground on issue as fast as possible at behest of entertainment industries.
News. At. 11.
They fear outside influence on their populace, but the truth is China will eat its self politically from the inside out, you can not give your population a "taste" of capitalism and expect to maintain the same level of political control, it doesn't work.
So rather than outside influences driving the change it will be the inside influences that do this, they went from “Practice Marxism and not Revisionism” to “Praise profit. Praise profit. Praise profit. Praise profit. Praise profit.”
We live in interesting times.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
We all talk about how terrible is Internet censorship in China, while in the meantime out own US congress (which by large does no longer represent the interests of US citizens) is considering laws to centralise control of the Internet, in the name of "security" and defending the interest of a small number of companies that heavily lobby on these regulations. This is happening right now, people. Wake up. You can keep criticising China, or maybe you can use that energy to do something about your own country. Or you can wait some years, and try to explain to your grandchildren why their freedom of speech is nowhere to be found.
I don't quite get how sourcing labour in one country then exporting the fruits of that labour to another (think Chinese kids putting iPads together for $0.10 a day to get around US employer taxes then those iPads being sold for upwards of $600 or whatever in the States) can in any way be considered legitimate. OK, so it keeps Chinese kids off the streets (laughably), but child slavery does nothing for the esteem of the country, its perceived Human Rights record (I can tell you right now that the UK is no halo'd angel when it comes to Human Rights), nor its "carbon footprint" compared with per capita GDP.
Pedant point: the term "piracy" has been co-opted by the Entertainment and Media industry from its original meaning which referred to crimes against the Person and Ship committed on the High Seas. The co-opted meaning refers to the unauthorised bootlegging (ie copying and distribution) of recorded works. It has nothing to do with rape and pillage and murder on the High Seas, but it invariably carries a harsher sentence because why? Because E&M owns Government (and writes the rules to serve itself - what would you do in that position?), and E&M controls the flow of information.
When you control the flow of information you can make people believe what you want them to believe and get it to the point where any oppositional thinking is regarded as delusional paranoia, rejected and mocked by the masses, any repitition of which is further regarded as inflammatory and slanderous. Many of those historically considered as evil (Mussolini, Hitler, Gadhafi, Hussein) knew of those techniques and used them to advantage in ways that would (and do) give DHS and MI5 wet dreams.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.