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China Tightens Internet Restrictions
The NY Times reports China has once again stepped up its efforts to control the internet, passing a new set of rules by which internet users and ISPs must abide. In addition to requiring that users provide their real names to internet providers, the government says those providers are now more responsible for deleting or blocking posts that aren't agreeable to the Chinese authorities. Quoting:
"The new regulations, issued by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, allow Internet users to continue to adopt pseudonyms for their online postings, but only if they first provide their real names to service providers, a measure that could chill some of the vibrant discourse on the country’s Twitter-like microblogs. The authorities periodically detain and even jail Internet users for politically sensitive comments, such as calls for a multiparty democracy or allegations of impropriety by local officials. In recent weeks, Internet users in China have exposed a series of sexual and financial scandals that have led to the resignations or dismissals of at least 10 local officials. International news media have also published a series of reports in recent months on the accumulation of wealth by the family members of China’s leaders, and some Web sites carrying such reports ... have been assiduously blocked, while Internet comments about them have been swiftly deleted. The regulations issued Friday build on a series of similar administrative guidelines and municipal rules issued over the past year. China’s mostly private Internet service providers have been slow to comply with them, fearing the reactions of their customers. The Standing Committee’s decision has much greater legal force, and puts far more pressure on Chinese Internet providers to comply more quickly and more comprehensively, Internet specialists said."
Countries like China, Iran, etc. may be leading the pack, but the trend for years now all over the world has been an increasingly locked-down internet.
And it's getting easier and easier for governments to do too. Just think of how different things are today vs. the mid-late 90's in the U.S. Back then in the dial-up days, you had all kinds of local ISP's available. It would have been almost impossible for the U.S. government to really control the internet. Today, virtually all broadband internet access is controlled by a handful of major corporate conglomerates (Time Warner, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-mobile probably control 90+% of all internet access in the country). Blacklisting sites, monitoring individual users, shutting down access by geographical location--it's all very easy for the U.S. government to do now (hell, they probably have it all automated and ready to go already, under the guise of national security of course). All it would take are a few laws slipping through.
And, of course, those laws are already slipping through in plenty of non-oppressive democracies like Australia, Britain, etc.
What China is doing today, the democratic world will be doing tomorrow.
And if you *really* want to get creeped out, think about a possible time in the future when most consumer computers are locked down too (similar to iOS's "walled garden"), and only authorized software is allowed to be installed (and governments can make individual software applications disappear the same as they can websites).
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
And they have ways of dealing with addicts over there http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/13/controversial-surgery-for-addiction-burns-away-brains-pleasure-center/
While meanwhile in the west people are enslaved by Google and Facebook...
As I read through these, I couldn't help but do some simple comparing between the Facebook TOS and Chinese laws. Real names, no posting of objectionable material; but then bannination is nothing like being jailed. Now think about the "mom test" (would you add your mom to your "friends" list?), or the general public.
Is that what most people want?
John
... net restrictions.
Since Saudi Arabia is an ally to the USA - which gives it the right to implement any kind of net restriction without getting any condemnation from Uncle Sam.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Not so different from what Facebook do, or in general what Google reports that is forced to do, ordered by the ones actually in power (mostly the ones reported here)
Cue up obligatory "But the USA is way worse!" postings from trolls who have never left their mother's basement and who have no idea what a *real* police state is.
Due to the recent school shooting, they have put a ton of restrictions on schools.
Umm, maybe in a few places but mostly things are unchanged. I coach at a high school and there has been pretty much no change in any of the 50 or so high schools in our county since the recent shooting in New England. Some understandable discussions regarding what would be appropriate action but there hardly has been any knee jerk reaction in most places.
TSA is there to make sure we don't forget that someone tried to light a sneaker on fire on a plane.
The TSA is there because some crazy people flew airplanes into buildings. That's not to excuse some of the ridiculous behavior of the TSA but it is there because we told our elected officials that a bunch of rent-a-cops weren't doing an adequate job of airport security before 9/11 which is arguably true. The TSA seems to be quite the overreaction but it is there because we collectively were afraid and our government did what we wanted them to do at the time.
And there is a ton more that has happened in the last 10 years that has shown that we are heading towards a police state.
A conveniently vague argument. If you really think the US is turning into a police state then why don't you move somewhere else?
One of the biggest clues is we have Wars on things.
Right, the War on Poverty really is a sign that we are oppressed. Terrible thing that our government did trying to help people.
The TSA hasn't stopped anything other then quick traveling since they have been started.
Guess as more laws, like the wiretapping law, aren't going to convince you that we are heading to a police state. I bet you are one of those people who will justify everything up until they take you away.
War on Poverty? Of all the wars, you pick one that is from 50's? Dude, wake the fuck up. We are talking current events, not shit from over 50 years ago.
Oh, and by the way, how did the war on poverty turn out? Did we get rid of the poor people?
I imagine you have a good life, you got time to coach, probably in your declining years. You are retired or getting ready to retire, and don't want to think that the great USA that you remember is going down the shit hole. Well, sorry buddy, it is, and why? Because people like you refuse to see the truth. You want to believe that everything will turn out good. That everyone is here to help everyone else and has the best interests in heart. The world isn't like that. People with power, abuse that power. They do what they can to get more power, and don't care who they hurt in the process. This is the history of man. We have always been that way, we always will be. And why? Because only a few of us listen and pay attention when it's happening, everyone else think it doesn't exist, or it's someone else's problem.
Be seeing you...
Linguistically you're first point may make sense but practically it does not. Censorship is not a form of pornography.
Not only pornography can be obscene.
I wouldn't call pronography a sound form of expression. Just look at the effects of it on our society.
Political speech, the protected speech by definition, brought us Fascism, National Socialism, Maoism and all the other political ideologies with millions of deaths in their history. Pornography has nothing on them in terms of "effects on society".
I hate to play the censorship card on this one but I am a realist - censoring people from material that is good for them is no different from preventing people from taking hard drugs such heroin.
I agree. Thankfully, where I live we've decriminalized the consumption of all drugs, including heroin. And usage dropped.
Grosteque tabus around sex is one extreme and it's complete openess devoid of censorship is another. Like I said we need an equilibrium here.
Soviet propaganda is an extreme, the truth is another, do we need an equilibrium? Argument to moderation is a fallacy; the middle term is not always the best course of action.
It may not but the correlation I am observing is that younger people such as myself have less reponsibility such as children. Therefore they are less likely to understand what it really means to have your children at risk on the internet, such as being exposed to uncensored pornography with all its genres.
Young people were themselves children not that long ago. But in any case, instead of making an ageist argument, you could instead provide evidence of those risks of uncensored pornography. I'll in turn provide the evidence of what censorship has caused throughout History.
I read a good post on slashdot a few days back about how students are usually left-wing and anti-taxation, until they step into the real world after they've done their degree and start earning.
You could attribute that to them being wiser. You could also attribute that to fear of losing their job. The status quo is always the choice of the average salaryman.
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