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"New Statesman" Pirates Its Own Magazine
WebMink writes "Knowing that its explosive special edition on China this week will be blocked by censorship, UK political magazine 'New Statesmen' has taken the unusual step of posting its own torrents of the PDF of the Mandarin edition on the magazine. Looking at the content of the issue they are probably right to expect censorship — there's an article from the former newspaper editor Cheng Yizhong about media censorship, and Ai Weiwei interviews a member of the '50 cent party' — a commenter paid half a dollar every time he derails an online debate in China. 'Essentially, these people are paid internet trolls; their job is to stop any meaningful discussion online about the government.'" Specifically, the magazine has made available this issue as a PDF and also as a torrent (magnet link).
Who on earth came up with that headline?
Can't seem to access the PDF link to read more into it. Interesting that the (sometimes) hours of effort involved in derailing a message thread or debate only pays 50 cents - one might argue that you'd be looking at 50-100 threads at once, but surely that's still not enough to justify the hours of work that must go into it each day?
It should be "Chinese Edition" since it refers to the written language. Mandarin is a spoken dialect of Chinese, roughly equivalent to what "Received Pronunciation" is to English. Chinese can generally understand all Mandarin, though few outside of Beijing can speak it perfectly.
Modern written Chinese borrows heavily from Mandarin grammar and vocabulary, while retaining some conventions from Classical Chinese, the older written form that was pretty much impossible to understand when read aloud.
While it is possible to write in Chinese characters using Cantonese, Minnan or Wu grammar, it's quite rare and considered strange or wrong, even in regions where those dialects are spoken.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
To heck with that... I just want to know where I can get paid for derailing discussions. I could make some serious D'oh!
http://www.beanleafpress.com
From 1223-1240, Mongols (partial ancestors of today's Han Chinese and cultural contributors to all of Asia) invaded Europe, eventually being stopped at the borders of Western Europe.
From 1839 to 1860, the English and Chinese fought a series of wars. If it had not occurred before, resentment of the West was now part of the Chinese psyche.
In 1949, China became communist. It no longer had the pro-Western orientation of its nationalist party.
From 1950 to 1953, the US fought a proxy war with China in Korea.
From 1965 to 1975, the US fought a proxy war with China in Vietnam.
Many of our enemies are using weapons made by China or her allies in Russia and Eastern Europe. This is unchanged since the 1950s-1990s when those nations were united into a military bloc as allies.
History repeats itself.
Hard times, coming our way.
Why in hell should a british newspaper be censored -in Britain?!?- 'cause it reports on China? Doesn'r make sense.
Censored in China? Yes. Censored in UK? No.
They are putting it on torrents so that people in China can read it! ...... Oh wait ... are you being paid 50c to divert the conversation to UK censorship?
"the '50 cent party' â€" a commenter paid half a dollar every time he derails an online debate in China"
I wonder how many microsofties on here have similar arrangements.
Its what you do when you study english.
In the magazine, Ai Weiwei interviews a member of the "50 cent party" - a commenter paid half a dollar every time he derails an online debate in China. Essentially, these people are paid internet trolls; their job is to stop any meaningful discussion online about the government.
Sound familiar?
Now cue the namechecking of known or suspected shills, sockpuppets, and gov “education facilitators”.
Whip up a frothy argument with yourself, being sure to throw in plenty of spurious assertations, then swoop in to save the day by delivering the party line du jour.
Pick your party. TAGS: Microsoft, linux, electric car, nuclear power, bomb Iran, military, politician. The list goes on and on. It gets pretty tedious.
Nope. I'm just trapped in a chinese fortune cookie factory.
None of my little notes have caught the eye of a western devil. Now I try it this way.
50 cent? Wowwwwaaa. That's like a 10 year income. Never seen so much money in my life.
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Moron.
So they are the Chinese equivalent of Fox News. I'm not just trying to make a joke, that is absolutely one of the effects of Fox News. They troll every story with a partisan angle and push their base ridiculously far to the right. Then everyone in the left and center responds by ridiculing them and offering counterpoints to their ridiculous arguments. But that doesn't matter because the effect of Fox News making their ridiculous arguments is that they keep both sides at war with each other so that there is no chance that we find common ground and fix the one problem that we can all agree on: reforming campaign finance and eliminating lobbying. By keeping us preoccupied by arguing over divisive yet relatively inconsequential matters, they are perpetuating our current system that heavily favors the rich. This has been going on for years and has been highly effective, so it's no wonder the Chinese are doing the same thing. People will always find ways around censorship, but keeping the people constantly distracted is the most effective way to fight unwanted changes.
I bet the US govt keeps a set of similar professionals, that have as a goal to keep people as stupid as possible.
safe for work also----sorry its not booby pix----->http://pastebin.com/Rekh6jYD
---somebody has made a list, its out there , im not sure what to think of it
it looks like they spent a lot of time compiling the list and there again,
im not sure what to think about it or if im supposed to think about it in this way
people are weird
captcha mutton--------bahh bahh bahhh
They'll PAY YOU to troll? I'm quitting my job and moving to china!
You keep using that word. I do no think that word means what you think it means...
Discern your political leaning:
1. Oh my god, how corrupt!
2. Eh, companies astroturf, why not governments?
3. 50 cents? That's not a living wage!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
China's the only place you can get paid to troll.
Sounds more like a Kanye West party.
To their list of prank phone names?
I just can't talk to you when you're right here.
1. Get Rich
2. Or Die Trying
Torrents are too easy to trace. Have a content hash key.
CHK@vpnUL3vxvFcSSco6lqNZkraPjfAh2Bk93O5cXIzVylg,I4hrjqe79tNMxKZBsvYYQY2n85G7FEngcP4u1I6l~sE,AAMC--8/AWW%20New%20Statesman.pdf
Hashes:
SHA1: 2064f57343a4de9a84ebddf49c6fe7c5e9eb8c9e
MD5: 626cac4d5702828c5ac6b59eac53eac6
SHA256: 81aedadc3d265d2b3ef7526fb88c2dd07decef8cac29b6c1cc122ec28e43bc8f
They own it, and all the rights to it, so unless they have refused to give themselves permission to distribute their magazine, a concept that makes no sence, they have the right to distribute it any way they want.
Translation: They can't pirate their own stuff.
THINK! It's patriotic
Destroy it.
These are the sources of FUD in the universe.
Identify and destroy, any means necessary.
You are calling kettle black.
Remove all the street cameras in UK as a first step before talking about bad things in other countries. The next step would be to openly list the similar and more heinous atrocities committed by your country in those other countries up until 100 years ago.
Then, may be you can start throwing grains of sand at others.
I think the "Kanye West Party" might be more accurate in this case.
You keep using that word. I do not think you know what it means.
If you give it away, its not "pirating"
What the hell were you even attempting to say in that post?
Shhhh. Anything that dilutes the meaning of the word "pirating" is a good thing.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
New Slashdot meme?
"In Communist China, government..."
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.