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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.
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.
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
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.
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...
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!
1. Discussing the issue within the framework set up by authority when it is the authority that needs changing is not usually workable. That's why rebellions start in the first place. Countries that make criminal offenses out of words that make certain people/groups feel bad have no business calling themselves free.
2. lobbying. well this is really an example of 1, right? Except of course you have to be wealthy, which 99% of us aren't, and those who are, are the ones using the government to their advantage. They don't want it to change unless one of their competitors lobbies for something unwanted.
3. love it or leave it, eh? the problem is that there's no where to go. the planet is populated. a lot of countries are moving towards this super sensitive mentality and it's not good for freedom. at all. think about it, if they don't even want citizens suggesting there's something wrong...