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China's Parallel Online Universe
An anonymous reader writes "China is increasingly operating an online parallel universe where social media clones 'mimic the functions of the most popular, internationally recognized social media applications, such as Facebook and Twitter. The replicas, however, come with a major catch: they systematically comply with the Chinese Communist Party’s strict censorship requirements.' They are satisfying the growing demand of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens for social media tools, reducing incentives for them to circumvent the 'Great Firewall,' Freedom House warns. Testing by researchers found that a search for the names of seven prominent Chinese lawyers, activists, and journalists on Sina Weibo returned no results, only an Orwellian notice that 'According to related laws and policy, some of the results are not shown here.'"
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Not to say that I am overly impressed with the Chinese approach, but to say that they are really bad is saying his shirt is much dirtier. The problem is that in the US most social media is censored quite a bit! And that I find sad... BTW google eg facebook censorship.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
America is increasingly operating a parallel universe where they have the power to impose their IP laws on the rest of the world, seizing domains that are both legal and based in countries outside their legal jurisdiction, as well as drafting laws that "only apply to other countries, not the United States."
Given the choice, I'd almost prefer to live in their world. At least they don't call themselves the defenders of liberty while they do this crap.
The camera watches you!
Silly Chinese government. Times like these make me proud to be an American. I can find whatever I want... Look, I'll just fire up the ole' Twitter and check out what the Taliban has to say... oh wait. Crap. Damn you Lieberman!!!
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
In America, censorship is only bad if the gubbmint is doing it. Really, we're no different from China. We're just trading one master for another.
As strongly as the Chinese gov't tries to control the information flow in and out of their country, does it really work? At some point doesn't the human mind and human nature cry to be free and see what's beyond that veil? The more tightly controlled any group is the more they try to circumvent or abolish those controls and when they do get that first breath of real free air, they seldom do anything but try to remain free.
Most certainly, there is a large amount of censorship all around and no amount of legalism will prove one is better than another. I will say that people need to be free to think for themselves, to believe for themselves, and feel as they want. If that desire is under the control of another, then so be it - that is their choice.
This is what many country's networks are going to look like in a few years. The united states will be next and Britain will follow soon after.
We are currently at war with Eastasia, we have always been at war with Eastasia.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Our wonderful government admires China's control of the internet and wants to do the same thing here.
A lot of people like their government-imposed veils, and they really, truly believe the propaganda deep down. Even in the U.S., after the Wikileaks stories broke, a lot of people agreed with the state line, saying "Some things need to be kept secret and the government needs to have its secrets for our own protection". One or two good mouthpieces and the talking points will get out.
We have several. Why shouldn't they?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
When unlimited money can flow into political coffers in the name of "free speech", isn't the government de facto owned and operated by the corporations?
i.e.: Nobody is trading anything. Meet the new master, same as the old master.
And the thing that surprises the Chinese is how heavily censored the US search engines are. I had a student come over to my apartment, she wanted to see the "sample" speeches for a speech competition she had entered. For all intents and purposes, we could find none in Google, we had to go to Biadu.
The same for many books, reference articles, and educational materials; we had to go to the Chinese search engines to find a Harvard Business Review article for a class exercise.
Now for the weird one, much of the information about the riots and protests in China is only available in China. It seems that no one outside of China wants to cover Chinese "bad news" other than the economic issues.
Living in China and using Chinese search engines, what I am amazed by is how hard it is to fond relevant information using the US search engines, in comparison to the Chinese ones.
What do you think SOPA was all about?
SOPA = The "Great Firewall of America."
What?! Censorship is NOT wrong when corperations do it, not even trolling. Google removing a result from THIER search is fine by me. On the other hand the government making it so I *can't* get to a website is not right. Corporations don't owe us anything. We can always switch to a service that does not censor, we can't just switch governments.
If you want a parallel universe, go to Freedom House's web page and look at their maps of China. In their world, all of southwestern China is an independent country called Tibet. That would kind of be like me drawing a map of the USA like this, and still be expected to be taken seriously as a moderate and rational voice when issuing reports on attacks on freedom in the USA, like SOPA. Thanks, I'll stick with Amnesty International, or something a little more neutral.
Is it so different that what we could see here?
"According to SOPA regulations we have been reqired to remove this content/site."
The main difference is who holds the stick. Here it is the corporation who holds the intellectual property (although there is not much intellectual coming out of Hollywood). There it is the government.
Silence is a state of mime.
How can China just copy all those $multi-billion companies' sites without any of them suing to stop China? If someone tried to copy them outside of the Chinese bubble, those companies would be slamming them down. They already do, even when the "copies" aren't really copies, just competition. The Chinese people settling for the bubble copies are all potential customers for the originals.
I'm talking trademark, copyright and patent. All being infringed to steal literally billions of customers from the owners. Where are the armies of lawyers?
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make install -not war
In America, censorship is only bad if the gubbmint is doing it.
Right. Because it only is censorship when the government is doing it. That's what the first amendment is all about: limiting the government's ability to mess with people's expression. That same constitution is also very serious about freedom to assemble and carry on doing your own thing ... including doing things like running a business where you can say what goes on in your own publications. Google being able to limit what shows on their web site is freedom, and it's a good thing, too.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Thank you for completely missing the message of this story. The people of China aren't rising up largely because the government there is making sure that they're getting something they perceive as "close enough" to the freedom they deserve, to make it not worth the trouble and danger of protesting publicly. That isn't a character defect; it's an unfortunate aspect of general human nature. Juvenal spoke of giving the people of ancient Rome "bread and circuses" to keep them from revolting. In 19th century Spain they called it "bread and bullfights". In modern America it's food stamps and TV.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Everything you say is also applicable to the US, except we're only 1/4 the size.
And one reason others want to see Chinese people more free is not for the Chinese themselves, but because what keeps them locked down can and will be used to lock down the rest of us. In fact versions of it already are.
Of course the purpose of the Chinese censorship, and of even more severe repression, is to keep the Chinese people from rising up. It's at least as likely that the Chinese people not rising up is because of the effectiveness of the control as it is that they are "morally bankrupt".
FWIW, people who don't care whether other people are tyrannized are "morally bankrupt".
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make install -not war
in the USA you don't get sent to a death camp for be part of a religion
Long live Xenu!
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
These stories about Chinese censorship and an all-controlling communist party are really easy for reporters to write. I follow blogs written in China, mostly USA writers who are based there. They basically don't see it. One writer keeps a regular column to "fact check" claims of blogs being censored and words being deleted, and says the majority of the time the reporter either assumed it, repeated a rumor, or just made it up. Most commentary on most social media is boring, and CCP (Chinese Communist Party) officials generally have better things to do than censor LOL status and twitter updates. There is just too much content to effectively censor. And Facebook etc. not catching fire in China may have more to do with Chinese language than with the CCP struggle to control it. It sounds like MySpace blaming government interference for losing to Facebook.
Gently reply
... they have armies of posters that they pay to influence opinions and mod comments. I've noticed the quality of many discussions at slashdot have gone down over the years and I know it's not just users themselves. There's an extremely pro-market, pro-capitalist slant that is often off the top and I wouldn't put it past corporations or government to infiltrate discussions and mod anything that is pro-america up and critical of american capitalism down.
I sincerely hope that was a troll and not a genuine opinion.
>> Corporations don't owe us anything
Fine: I own a restaurant and I don't want to serve black people. Or hispanics. ...
Your comments were regarding censorship, so another example would be Google censoring everything about blacks, or Jews, or Tibet,
That's bullshit !!!
Corporations don't exist in a vacuum. They use public facilities paid for by all of society (roads, police, fire departments, etc). There should always be limits to what they can and can't do. In Australia we have anti-discrimination laws that enumerate the categories against which private companies can not discriminate. I dare say many countries would have similar legislation.
Regarding switching ... ironically the opposite is true:
you CAN'T always switch services (sometimes they're monopolies) however we CAN switch governments. At worst every few years; more often if we the people get riled up.
Thank You.
I am John Hurt.
I think our forefathers did switch governments.
The doublethink is strong in this one. Who knew that having our access to information routinely censored meant we were free.
Who knew that having our access to information routinely censored meant we were free.
Ah, so your idea of freedom is being able to make slaves out of other people? Your idea of freedom is having the government dictate what someone running a web site must say, or must allow other people to say? Talk about your disingenuou hypocrisy.
So, what sort of arrangements do I need to make, under your system, where I get tell you how to do your communicating? Will you enjoy your the freedom of my getting to tell you how you have to speak? Please, do tell.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This Chinese "parallel universe" internet is just a preview of what's waiting for the rest of us.
There is already little similarity between the Internet of 2012 and the Internet of previous decades, and the difference is not encouraging. Every year, the Internet becomes a little less of it's unlimited potential, and a little more of cable television. If you were paying attention in the '90s to the way the media conglomerates and telecoms were frantically playing catchup after having been completely taken by surprise by the rise of the Internet, you would have been able to predict what was coming. Though I never thought the end would come so quickly. Corporations, commerce and "free speech zones. Walled gardens. The opposite of the promise of usenet. The more useful the Internet becomes for corporations, the less useful it becomes for human beings. We don't need a worldwide virtual shopping mall, we need a worldwide virtual community. The Internet has been Wal-marted, Amazoned, and SOPA'd into shit. If there's going to be commerce let it be more Maxwell Street and less Home Shopping Network.
Now is the time to be thinking about moving our traffic to something else. Ad hoc networks, darknets, maybe a new internet a la pirate radio. Lightening isn't going to strike twice and we won't see another phenomenon like the Internet and the way it just sort of happened, without corporate ownership, without the "job creators" designing it according to their needs. Without the masters of the universe creating a legal framework that shuts out individuals and small voices.
DIY.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Why this obsession with internal affairs of another foreign country?
If Chinese people are so unhappy they would overthrow their government.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
The fact the Americans even gives a shit about what wang chung is getting or not getting in front of his computer screen in China smacks of hidden agenda.
If China is so abusive, maybe the Americans should take their business elsewhere (it's like you continue to patronize a restaurant that you claim serves shitty food). Or maybe the America is just a nation of masochists?
Perhaps the Americans can start working with India? The other large population country.
Oh I'm sorry, I forget it's a failed democratic country just like the Americans are.
look at my sig. i am no friend of SOPA. having said that, suppressing political expression is not the same as an abusive monopoly warping laws to justify their technologically defunct existence
in other words, SOPA is evil. but suppressing political expression is much more evil
i can't share files in the usa, but i can call obama every vile slur i want 900 times a day for years. i can share files in china, but i can't say one thing about my leaders without risking severe repercussions
it's a completely different issue. it really is
and if you can't see that china is worthy of special condemnation without the bullshit "yeah but the usa..." no, the usa nothing: you are free to criticize your political leaders all you want, and any bullshit going on in the media industry warping our laws and buying off ignorant congresscritters whoring out their office IS evil, but a much smaller evil than what is going on in china. really
if you can't understand that, you really shouldn't comment on the subject matter, because you don't understand it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. Chris Dodd, former senator, now head of MPAA, spoke admiringly of China's great firewall, saying that we could filter copyright violation if they could filter so much speech on their networks
2. Thomas Drake, Stephen Kim, Shamai Leibowitz, Jeffrey Alexander, Bradley Manning.
these 5 people's stories, and the details of the charges against them, prove that speech is increasingly being attacked for political reasons. under the guise of 'national security'.
OK, so we're clear now. You want the ability to control (to limit the freedom) of other people as they communicate and run their businesses. Like every evil Nanny State buffoon - just like Hugo Chavez "protecting" his people's liberty by shutting down radio stations that didn't say the things and play the music as he directed - you are actually trotting back out one of history's ugliest urges. You want to be able to tell the New York Times, the BBC, Google, your local radio stations, Microsoft, all of the bloggers that ramble online, every book publisher, people who choose which songs to perform songs in bars (or used to be able to choose, before your illiberal Orwellian anti-freedom kicked in) ... you want to define freedom for them by denyin them choice.
You want the editor of a web site to wake up in the morning, and go to work according to you rules, rather than in the service of their own vision and the audience they want to serve. You want slaves, and you're lamely - like every person with totalitarian sensibilities - trying to frame it as doing your slaves a favor.
The best part is how you characterize competing businesses that have brought huge new access to information - access unprecedented in human history - as being those who are limiting freedom. What a bunch of ignorant, perspective-less, whiny, adolescent, short-sighted nonsense. Or, you're exactly what you seem to be: someone who knows all of that, but is actively pursuing the sort of government control over private people and their communication that is and has always been seen in the worst of abusive nations. You'd fit right into North Korea, where they defend liberty in exactly the way you seem to prefer.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Freedom is not having my business's website blocked by my customers' ISP.
America is very different than China. But simply having more online freedom than China shouldn't be a goal of course.
In America, content can be removed capriciously online. Sometimes people are sued by corporations. In the worst case scenario where you're caught red-handed sharing a movie online that hasn't been released in the theaters yet, you could be sent to jail for 2 years.
In China, you can write something online that offends a government official. You will then be summoned or taken to a police station. You could then spend the next 8-10 years at a labor camp and many other bad things can (and would) happen to you. On the plus side, you can upload as many movies as you want without repercussion over there. That's not a very good trade in my opinion.
We're going to need an alternative to reality if SOPA passes. I for one welcome our new Maoist overlords.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I am quite sure you could do it yourself, but here are the answers for the other readers :
Two of the three blog posts are from Han Han, a very popular and influential blogger, who recently explained his positions on democracy and revolution (he followed up with another post about freedom). Pretty boring stuff actually, but gave rise to political discussions in blogs and weibo. The third blog post was an answer from another blogger to this post about revolution by Han Han.
The three Weibo queries give the same answer : According the the relevant regulations and policies, no results are shown for "..." (the query terms were Communist Party, Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao)
I hate the idea of SOPA too. But for fucks sake, let's stop downplaying the genuinely sad situation in China by acting like our problems are worse.
No doubt you noticed that thousands were allowed to protest in public places for months on end, while you're allowed to bitch endlessly on slashdot about how much you hate your government, all without anyone knocking on your door and disappearing you in the middle of the night?
Try those things, just once, in China... see what happens.
Did they clone the sucky cable companies also?
Table-ized A.I.
Hi from Beijing.
Generally, it's only big fish who get the lock-up treatment. If you say something anti-government most of the time you'll just get filtered out by an automated keyword block system and noone will care. It's only when you get to be in a position where a lot of people might pay attention to you that you'd attract "personal" treatment.
As an example, during the Egypt riots last year, a few of my friends were sending Weibo tweets drawing parallels between pictures of tanks in Cairo and events in/around Tian'anmen Square in 1989. None of them received visits from the authorities & their posts were either quietly keyword-blocked or deleted soon after they were posted.
For a counter example, look up Ai Weiwei. The main difference is that he's famous and he's been openly and actively anti-government for quite some time.
Ai Weiwei was a big fish. Me and my friends are little fish and are fairly unlikely to be disturbed & can continue to be openly critical as long as we don't get too much attention.
The distinction between corporate power and political power in the United States is really quite a bit smaller than most Americans realize. Corporate money is what controls government policy--not just through the obvious route of lobbyists, but in fact through more insidious means, such as the use of propaganda and media bias to shape public perception. This is why partisanship and animosity has increased in proportion to the flow of and ease of access to information, as the intensity of this manufactured conflict drives media consumption (and in turn, fuels advertising revenue). Therefore, it is important to recognize that the notion of "censorship" as it has traditionally applied to a government's silencing of free expression of its people, is too rigid and narrow a framework within which to discuss contemporary social, economic, and political problems caused by the ascension of corporate power in US politics. Instead, to discuss the true extent of how most Americans have lost the ability to shape their futures--in which self-expression plays a critical role--it is necessary to examine how we have not so much lost the liberty to speak out or vote against the policies of our government, but rather, how we have been made dumb, compliant, and fearful by a plutocracy that doesn't need to censor because the public has been brainwashed into supporting policies that are actually contrary to their self-interest.
In this context, then, it is clear that the censorship that occurs in China, for all its relative overtness and lack of subtlety, is really no more insidious, potent, or damaging than the "non-censorship" censorship that occurs in the US. Ultimately, they are really not that dissimilar--at their most basic level, both are merely a means of control, wielded by an elite group with a great deal of money with which they buy influence to further serve their financial and political interests. The only substantive difference is that for the most part, the Chinese know that they exist in a cage, and tend to retain the status quo for cultural reasons, whereas Americans have been fooled into thinking they are somehow "free" because if they realized the truth, they'd revolt. The common reality is that everyone is just a human resource, a commodity for corporations to exploit in the pursuit of ever-increasing amounts of wealth.
You get little attention not because you aren't a big fish but because you are not part of a threatening movement. Consider the Chinese government going apeshit when the Falun Gong do calisthenics on the government's front lawn. Right now you are part of Chinese government database of people to be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Fine: I own a restaurant and I don't want to serve black people. Or hispanics.
In Australia we have anti-discrimination laws that enumerate the categories against which private companies can not discriminate. I dare say many countries would have similar legislation.
I'm proud to say that, if you did that (own a restaurant and I don't want to serve black people) in my country (Portugal) you'd land in jail. I'm not so sure about that in the USA, though.
Yes, if the US continues on the path that they seem to have taken we in Europe will have a parallel internet too.
-- Cheers!
Doing unapproved calisthenics outside Zhongnanhai definitely makes you big fish.
I don't think we disagree fundamentally. Ai Weiwei was obviously threatening enough that he had to be dealt with. But a bunch of random people sending Weibo can be left to the keyword filters and Sina.com's team of moderators, and generally noone is gonna come a-knockin'.
The revolution came. Supposedly we're living in it. When the next one comes hopefully I'll no longer be here. But I hope it makes things better and not worse.
Without question, Beijing is very direct with how it wishes to silence civilians. You say they only target the big fish. Perhaps that's true. But if the method of how they target is anything like America, it can be both the little and the big fish. I'll cite a few examples. Take the IRS. It's purpose is to collect US tax money. While they go after those with deeper pockets to make the time worth while, sometimes they will go after someone random just to make a point. Fear. The population learns to fear the IRS and thus act as an advisory against not paying taxes. All other neighbors will generally hear from their plight. The MPAA does the same thing only worse. They go after the small fish. Little grandmother getting smashed into bankruptcy. They don't want money. That want to financially ruin her as an example to others. Again, it's all about the message and the sacrificial lambs they make out of people in the process.
What I'm essentially saying is this. Just because you're from China doesn't mean you should ignore the kind of crap that goes on in other nations too. In fact, I would say being an asshole is a universal human constant regardless of the nation you live in. I'm sure there's a mathematical equation written about it someplace...
Life is not for the lazy.
You want to be able to tell the New York Times, the BBC, Google, your local radio stations, Microsoft, all of the bloggers that ramble online, every book publisher, people who choose which songs to perform songs in bars (or used to be able to choose, before your illiberal Orwellian anti-freedom kicked in) ... you want to define freedom for them by denyin them choice.
Just so we are clear, the GP is saying that the companies above should have the freedom to reach their audiences and customers without being selectively blocked by ISPs.
No doubt you noticed that thousands were allowed to protest in public places for months on end, while you're allowed to bitch endlessly on slashdot about how much you hate your government, all without anyone knocking on your door and disappearing you in the middle of the night?
Try those things, just once, in China... see what happens.
No need to try it again to see what happens.
Fine: I own a restaurant and I don't want to serve black people. Or hispanics.
- and it's your right.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is unconstitutional and it impedes on your right, as a private property owner to do business on your private property as you see fit. That so called 'Rights Act' is actually an Entitlements and Obligations Act, which is a result of overreach of government power and the sections that deal not with government, but with private business and private individuals must be abolished.
You can't handle the truth.
I think you're right, but it has a big effect. Almost anyone who has much to lose won't take chances of being openly critical of the government online. Students, youth and people who don't have government jobs may feel safer criticizing the government. But people with high government jobs or who are related to someone with a job like that seem to be more cautious.
My wife was from a politically connected family in Beijing. She saw first-hand some of the awful corruption there, but would never post anything about it online for fear of getting her family in trouble.
I don't know if they actually would get in trouble, but she was certainly cowed by the Chinese government and I'm sure she isn't the only one.
Yes, I agree with you here too. For people who have government connections, the stakes are a bit higher so they'll probably be more careful. Also, having a higher profile probably means you're more likely to be monitored by a person.
I guess what I was trying to address was that your post seemed to imply (to me) that writing things online that offends a government official will almost certainly get you locked up. From what I can say, this is generally not the case (with a decent number of terrible exceptions, of course) and I think most of the filtering on Weibo is automatic, and even that which is seeming manually done has not resulted in any repercussions for anyone that I know who has had a post blocked or deleted.
(I am not an apologist for the Chinese government. I think in general the Chinese government is terrible. But it's important to see things objectively, so I write about what I personally observe in Beijing so that people might be better informed of the subtleties of the situation.)
Freedom is not having my business's website blocked by my customers' ISP.
You don't have a relationship with your custome's ISP. Your customer does. He has the freedom to choose an ISP that shapes/filters traffic to his taste, or to choose one that doesn't. Or are you saying that the government is making your customer's ISP block access to your web site?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This. I would never consider giving a restaurant like that my money but the civil rights act was a huge overreach on the part of the federal government and no one can honestly consider it to be even remotely constitutional.
There aren't any that don't.
300 char limit. Actual threaded conversation where you can see both the @ and the response. Twitter is simply NOT usable unless you subscribe to everyone in the world and decide to wade thru all the crap. G+ doesn't have the critical mass yet.