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New Rules Bring a "Credit Rating" For Users of Chinese Social Network
An anonymous reader links this article describing a newly installed set of rules affecting the already put-upon Internet users of China, specifically affecting users of social network Sina Weibo: "Sina Weibo users each will now receive 80 points to begin with, and this can be boosted to a full 100 points by those who provide their official government-issued identification numbers (like Social Security numbers in the U.S.) and link to a cellphone account. Spreading falsehoods will lead to deductions in points, among other penalties. Spreading an untruth to 100 other users will result in a deduction of two points. Spreading it to 100-1,000 other users will result in a deduction of five points, as well as a week's suspension of the account. Spreading it to more than 1,000 other users will result in a deduction of 10 points, as well as a 15-day suspension of the account." The article explains (in truth, not very helpfully) the extent to which users' freedom to talk freely will be curtailed; the long list of what not to do "includes using 'nonconforming' or false images to mislead," "exaggerating events," "presenting already [resolved] events as ongoing," "efforts to incite ethnic tensions and violence and hurt ethnic unity" and "efforts to spread cultist or superstitious thinking; spreading rumors to disrupt social harmony." (And of course the catch-all: "other activities stipulated by authorities.")
You know the one; just cut it out; I'm not going to tell you again.
I suppose here if your facts are different than the "official government facts" you're guilty of spreading falsehoods.
Someone in China must read /. and decided to adopt the Karma system.
sudo make me a sandwich
Will only people who repeat government propaganda have the high scores?
If your score is above 75, you're probably a government propagandist.
Why can't they do this on youtube? And can they include demerits for bad spelling/grammar? Might not be the worst idea.
Kidding.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
When can we implement this Stateside?
Probably has to do with this ( http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-30/asia/world_asia_china-microblogs-crackdown_1_coup-rumors-coup-attempt-sina-s-weibo?_s=PM:ASIA )
Spreading of unfounded rumors of a coup in Beijing on Social media, means more restrictions will come into play. It was to be expected. After all, libel and other forms of lying are illegal in most of the world. So is attempting to incite rebellion illegal in just about every country in the world including China. Its obvious that the Chinese would do something about it eventually.
50 points from Griffindor!!!!!
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Chinese citizen: I love President Obama and his wife Hillary Clinton. I got a "Clinton" at the Olympics.
You Americans call that a bj if I recall correctly.
Sure, but sorting and reading/socializing that way also identifies you as subversive. How convenient indeed!
Censorship in China is illegal. Since it's illegal, it doesn't happen, so there is no need for a complaint mechanism. Amusing as that line of thinking (or not thinking) is, it isn't as bad as the Conservative government in Canada. Faced with criticism about it's environmental policies, it responded by taking away environmental organisations charitable status. Don't respond to criticism, wipe it out. Maybe that's why Prime Minister Harper refers to his jet as the Death Star.
Realize that obtaining objectivity is actually pretty hard. In America, entire cities of people would like to teach that man was created from dirt by a very anthropomorphic all-powerful being, and that the theory of evolution is a direct lie intended to mislead you to a pit of eternal fire. They are pretty angry at governmental regulations that forbid the teachings of what they think is "truth," and require the teaching of what they think is a lie. And yet, equally populous communities of scientifically enlightened Americans approve of this governmental regulation of truth, while simultaneously disapproving of the Chinese government doing the same thing.
Freedom in general is pretty difficult to tolerate. The more free my neighbors are, the more they are able to do things that harm me (like ruin their yards which reduces my property values, mishandle their firearms resulting in bullets flying in my direction, or vote in laws that prevent me from terminating an unwanted pregnancy or marrying whatever adult I fall in love with, or establish market dominance and abuse their position as a monopoly forcing me out of business and relegating me to work for pennies, etc.).
The higher the population density, the greater incentive everyone faces to limit what everyone else can do (while, of course, wanting to retain their own freedoms). The end result is an endless game of hypocrisy and tyranny. Don't expect it to change, either, as this is the best humans can do.
CHICOMs
And this was one of the countries petitioning the UN for control of the internet....
To avoid censorship (which the Party is attempting to be less ham-fisted with) the "political" comments with the most re-tweets have become more and more sideways. I'd expect the "rewards" system to have to wait until some re-tweet elevates, at which point everyone will be punished retrospectively who re-tweeted it. The evolution of Chinese commentary in social networks is really something.
Gently reply
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. "Questioning the existence of the holocaust" should be something which is socially frowned upon, and should have some sort of repercussions, such as a mandatory visit to a Holocaust museum. I also don't see what's wrong with punishing "efforts to incite racial hatred and violence".
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
That is inhuman. So a gift of $100 actually costs me $100 instead of $50 odd dollars?
most honest or most brave/stupid/outspoken?
You can be honest without painting a target on yourself and your family.
That's what I like about /. - there's no censorship (or at least there wasn't until this flag button came along) and this allowed people to speak their mind. We may not like what others have to say but it's the only way to have any meaningful discussion.
Also, everyone should be able to sort bullshit from pertinent posts on their own in order to decide what to pay attention to and what to ignore (and if not, then these are skills that can be learned).
Just try to do what somebody in power defines as:
1. Deny the holocaust,
2. Incite homophobia.
3. Incite racial hatred.
4. Display child pornography (where in some places e.g. Italy the "child" can mean a 17 years old).
5. Denigrate the Moslem religion.
6. Suggest that Homeland Security has been given too much power.
And in all those cases, truth or consent is NOT a defence!
And you will find yourself in jail, not just banned from posting for a month.
The problem is, it's nobody's business if I don't believe the Holocaust happened, and I should have the right to express my opinions. And once you start banning people from questioning facts, you create a mechanism where the government can "force" people to believe what the government wants them to.
Sure, right now this is used for good it seems - we just ban holocaust denialism. Now what happens if one day the government decided to ban creationism denialism? In theory it can happen, because when the government was given the right to ban holocaust denialism it was effectively given the right to ban some kinds of speech.
Also, there is no way to study history accurately thanks to banning holocaust denialism. It's a given fact that both the allies and the axis used propaganda in the war. It's also known that the winner writes history. I'm not saying the holocaust did not happen, but some of it might be exaggerated or completely false. Who knows, maybe some German documents describing SOME atrocities might turn out to be forgeries written by the allies for propaganda purposes.... The problem is, historians can't study this now - their hands are tied by the law (or more accurately, their mouths are shut).
Finally, banning holocaust denialism just gives credit to the denialists. See, if the government can really prove that the holocaust happened, then why are they silencing critics instead of showing us evidence? Maybe the denialists are on to something...
Censoring them can also make them look like victims of oppression. I personally think they are victims of oppression - I disagree with their views on the Holocaust but I don't think they should be censored abusively by the government like is the case now. France of all countries should know better, considering it's history.
And most of all, do you know exactly what denialists say? Do you know what arguments they use exactly? I don't and neither does anyone, since we don't let them speak. If a denialist came up to me and showed me his evidence, I probably would not know how to counter him. He might show me documents that "prove" the holocaust did not happen, and maybe these documents have been found to be forgeries 20 years ago, but since there's no public debate about this, I would not be able to tell him "oh yeah I know that document, it's a fake". The only counter I would have would be to put my fingers in my ears and repeat loudly "I'M NOT LISTENING YOU ARE A DENIALIST I DO NOT BELIEVE A WORD YOU SAY" and that is NOT debate and it does NOT make me more educated or wiser.
As for "inciting racial hatred" and such - problem is, anything can be deemed to incite racial hatred. These laws are often too broad and can serve to censor/punish more than people who seriously want to organize mass lynchings of an ethnic minority. Just saying "due to the threat of terrorism, we should be extra-careful and screen Pakistani immigrants VERY carefully before letting them inside our country" can be construed as inciting racial hatred.
Also, same as with outlawing denialism, this will only push racists underground where they can't be countered and criticized. If we had a public debate about racism, we could teach people why racism is wrong and more importantly, why the ideas of racists are wrong. Some people might say that we do educate people about racism and why it's wrong, but this is not true - most people know very little about the history of racism, or history in general. Some racists argue that the white man has always been more advanced than other races, which ignores the fact that Asia was scientifically superior to Europe at one point (until the 5th century, I believe). But a lot of people don't even know that at one time, white people were behind China. When a racist tells these people "the white man was always superior", these people will agree because they don't know history well enough. And there will be nobody to oppose that racist and say "hey, you're wrong there, here's an example..." because thanks to censorship laws, racists will make damn sure there are no anti-racists around when they spread their propaganda.
So I take it that those users who do NOT "provide their official government-issued identification numbers ... and link to a cellphone account ..." will suffer greatly by having to sign up for another fake account every single time they run out of points ... Gosh, that's harsh.
If it's a UN body, they can use their vote/veto to censor anything they don't like.
They're all about micromanaging what people think, apparently...
Depends on how you define "untruth". The way you or I would probably define it is "something that is not true", in which case, the question becomes "how do you (the sharer) know something to be 'true' before sharing?" or alternatively, "Do you, in good faith, believe that what you shared was true?"
The way the Chinese government seems to define it is, "Any statement that is critical of, or damaging to the reputation of the Communist Party and the Glorious People's Republic". In which case, why did you share something that you knew to be an untruth, you swine? 50 points from Gryffindor (plagiarized from above commenter)
There's a difference between somebody being a troll, and called out for it by other users, and the government retroactively proclaiming something "untrue", which knowing the CCP, would be loosely defined as "stuff we don't want you to say".
Answer, don't censor. Something that most governments, political parties, religious institutions, corporations, etc should have hammered into their heads!
You europeans/britons/australians are waaay too easily offended if you need to censure words with criminal punishment. Get a spine, get a grip.
peaceful? maybe. honest? no. who defines honesty then? some popular crowdbased 'like' system? sorry but argumentum ad populum is not a good way of deriving truth.
This plan seems to count on the fact that information could be spread to a vast number of people at little cost to owners accounts spawning the last couple of hops.
FTFY. Emphasis added
Thank you. The insult was deserved.