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Arrested Chinese Blogger "Confesses" On State TV, Praises Censorship

Posted by Soulskill on from the i'm-sure-we-can-take-that-at-face-value dept.

Koreantoast writes "As part of a broader, chilling Chinese crackdown on Internet dissent, Chinese blogger Charles Xue appeared on Chinese state television in handcuffs on Sunday, denouncing his blog and praising government censorship. He 'confessed' to becoming drunk on the accumulated power of his Weibo blog, which peaked at 12 million followers, and confessed to recklessly spreading unverified rumors and slander, disrupting social harmony and becoming a vent of negative emotion on mainstream society. He also praised new government legislation cracking down on Internet freedom, stating how dangerous the Internet would be if left uncontrolled by the government. Xue was arrested on prostitution solicitation charges though his television confession did not discuss that. His arrest was also suspiciously around the same time as a broader government sweep that picked up other Chinese Internet activists."

28 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by DNAgent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is exactly the outcome that Diane Feinstein and others of her ilk would visit upon the U.S., given her way.

    1. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by icebike · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you want to know results, try Venezuela. A year ago, they removed the guns from private citizen's hands because of escalating violence. Their crime rate is now 1/1000 (yes, ten cubed) what it was before the gun ban.

      They removed some small percentage of arms from the hands of citizens, mostly to prevent overthrow of Chavez, and since he is dead, nobody cares any more. Other than that your claim is totally bogus.

      But then, posting as AC, its what we all expect.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thats WONDERFUL! Say, whats the state of human rights, democracy, etc in Venezuela?

      All of these things are connected, you know; the Bill of Rights wasnt drafted for no reason.

    3. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Drudge is a "blogger" now? News to me. Unhinged, shit-flinging monkey perhaps, kind of like you appear to be.

      You just described bloggers. 99.9% of them are worthless drivel.

      And you just assumed that an elected politician would know the difference between a blog and a "news" website. Rights are Rights. You either have them, or you don't. That is why ours are so black and white, to avoid generalized fucktard opinions like this that can become law.

    4. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Venezuela's crime rate is 1/1000 of what it was? Why are articles like this http://www.english.rfi.fr/americas/20130619-impunity-leads-soaring-venezuela-crime-rate so easily found?

    5. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by PRMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, can the "I always vote Democrat" idiots in California finally vote her out please? I'm sick of being represented by her. But since they elected Jerry Brown to bankrupt California for a third time, probably not.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    6. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by icebike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Impossible? Really?

      Machetes work very well too.

      The second amendment granted the PEOPLE the right to arms, not the government, and it was precisely to control the government that they were given these rights. It was fully expected that the PEOPLE would have the same arms as any soldier, which in this the modern era every citizen should be expected to have a fully automatic military long arm and a side arm.

      See Switzerland. Vastly higher gun possession rate, gun death rate less than half of the US rate.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    7. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We have a government that has 'constitution-free zones', 'free-speech areas', and drone strikes the shit out of its own citizens without warrant or trial. And just this summer we found out the government's been spying on all of us. And you still think it's a brilliant idea for Congress to ban all guns.

      I used to think gun control was a good idea. I thought all semi-automatic weapons should be outlawed. I could not see the case where a semi-auto rifle could deliver results that a bolt or lever-action simply couldn't provide. I thought the government could be trusted with taking up peoples' weapons. I was wrong.

      My views changed on this subject last summer, due to articles about the NDAA, willy-nilly drone strikes, the NSA data center in Utah (hey! the conspiracy nuts were right...again), and the whole Julian Assange embassy business. Even if a gun ban worked perfectly, and everybody (including the criminals) turned in their weapons to Uncle Sam...what do you think would happen about government abuses? We're knocking down the four boxes pretty quick. Soap doesn't work. I don't have a multi-million dollar news network to spread my views. Ballot doesn't work. The elections are rigged. Jury doesn't work. Not with secret courts. We're down to the ammo box, friends and neighbors. Giving that ammo box back to the same critters who tyrannize us will do...what, exactly? A few million pissed-off people with hunting rifles can cause a hell of a lot of trouble.

      Hey, I even used to buy into the whole 'mouth-breathing redneck meme', too. And then I started getting to know some. You know, being open-minded and all that crap. Turns out, they're pretty darned cool. Sure, they may not have sheepskins from universities on their walls, but they've got a hell of a lot more practical knowledge than I do. Some of the most intelligent people I've ever met are farmers who dropped out of high school. Some of the stupidest, most naive jackasses I've ever encountered have multiple PhDs from Yale and Stanford. Don't generalize before you really hang out with a group. They might surprise you. Ah, and most of the 'mouth-breathing rednecks' I've known have exhibited extreme amounts of caution and safety when operating a weapon. They know how much damage it can do.

      Gun ban legislation will only do one thing: spark civil war. The 'Joe Sixpacks' with their blue tick hounds are plenty pissed about the Patriot Act, NDAA, and all that other crap. Don't let the stupid media stereotypes fool you! They like the first amendment too. A gun ban will push them over the edge (last box). It will not work. Simply because a lot of people will not let it work. Good for them, I say.

      I think you've got a very inaccurate misconception about rural people. Spend some time with 'em. They'll blow your mind. I betcha we're on the same side about all the overreaches of power and whatnot. Let's focus on *that* first. Priorities. Let's reestablish a free country with liberty for all again.

    8. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by dk20 · · Score: 3, Informative

      One would think Canada would be most similar to the US except it has a near total gun ban.

      I'm not going to pretend Canada is some sort of crime-free nation but the crime index is interesting:
      US:53.44
      Canada: 34.98

    9. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by alexgieg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A gun ban (like every other civilized country) would have made the massacre of children at Sandy Hook impossible.

      Like a drug ban makes consuming drugs impossible and the prohibition caused everyone to stop drinking?

      Here in Brazil we have a near total ban on guns. It's almost impossible to get a license to own a gun, and even more impossible to get the right to carry it around. Miraculously though, almost all criminals have guns, several of which military grade. Guess who are the only people who don't? A hint: starts with "law abiding" and ends with "citizens".

      Here's what would stop any massacre in any school: an unknown number of armed teachers. Child-massacring wannabees chose schools because they know those are not only defenseless, but mandated by law to be defenseless. Break that assumption and the issue solves itself.

      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    10. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by jcr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The whole point of 2nd amendment is to let citizens

      NO.

      The constitution does not create our rights. The second amendment acknowledges the existing right to self-defense, and prohibits the government from infringing it.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    11. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The second amendment granted the PEOPLE the right

      No it didn't, and the idea that the constitution created our rights is a very dangerous misconception. Our rights are intrinsic to our human nature, and what the constitution does is delegate certain powers to the government.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    12. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by BlueBlade · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is a ridiculous statement. The concept of human rights are a human creation. The truth is that every "right" you have is currently granted to you at the point of a gun, through social constructs like law and its enforcement. Viewing rights as intrinsic is dangerous, because in the end it's just an ideology. I do agree with the idea of basic human rights granted to everyone, but we should never lose sight that we only have them because we kill and imprison people who disagree.

      Without the constitution, those "intrinsic" rights would cease to exist immediately to the whim of whoever owns the most efficient means of violence to enforce their views.

      --
      Religion is the best example of mass psychosis
    13. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is exactly the outcome that Diane Feinstein and others of her ilk would visit upon the U.S., given her way.

      Excuse me, but what exactly makes you so confident that it isn't already this way? You can't blame "Diane Feinstein" or [insert another name here] for this. The situation would simply breed another person to take their place. Blame Obama! Blame Bush! Blame Canada!

      Please. Every government in the world wants things to be sunshine and kittens. It's the basis for all propaganda. We got revisionist history rewriting our high school text books every year. We got angry white fat dudes in suits on Fox News screaming at us about how avoiding war in Syria is somehow a bad thing... because Russia offered a peaceful solution and Syria took them up on it. I mean, how twisted is it that the party that made it's main agenda "making Obama a one term president" is backing him now because he's all like Let's Bomb ALL TEH THINGZ!

      With media distortion and control like that patently obvious to anyone who puts on their critical thinking cap, why are we thinking that we're somehow different than the Chinese in this regard? They got propaganda. We got propaganda. And?

      Anyone who says they're "pro-" whatever is admitting they've been suckered by pro-paganda. About the only place you don't hear "I'm pro-this-thing" is in science, where people regularly say "Well, the new evidence says I'm wrong. SWEET! To the lab!" ... They don't care for being pro-anything except passion for the work. Learn from them.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    14. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by drkim · · Score: 3, Informative

      See Switzerland. Vastly higher gun possession rate, gun death rate less than half of the US rate.

      They have a very different setup from the US.

      First: ALL able-bodied male Swiss citizens are drafted into the military around 20. All.
      (Do you really want to return to a mandatory draft in the US?)
      In the military they get extensive training in weapons safety, weapons handling, following order, etc.
      Those with an exemption from service pay an additional 3% of annual income tax until the age of 30.
      (So draft, or more taxes. No escape.)

      Second: Every male head-of-household (remember, these are now former military) is required to maintain a working firearm. (They have the option of retaining their service weapon, but it is de-milled to remove full-auto operation.) [There is an upper age cutoff for this, I forget what it is.]

      So, yes, there are LOTS of guns in Switzerland. But very, very different rules.

    15. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by BlueBlade · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But that's my very point - they are not unalienable. They are made up. Human rights have no basis in reality, there's no fundamental law of nature that grant humans those rights. They are only an ideology and, as soon as someone with different views gathers the most power, they'll cease to exist. In the future, it's possible that technology will enable someone with a different ideology to seize power, and those "unalienable" rights would go away, perhaps never to return until humanity becomes extinct.

      If rights effectively go away once you don't own the biggest guns anymore, then by definition they aren't unalienable : they are created by mankind. This is why you have to be willing to kill to defend your ideologies, otherwise people can use violence to enforce their way of life over you.

      --
      Religion is the best example of mass psychosis
    16. Re:Drudge and other U.S. bloggers are next by gsslay · · Score: 3, Informative

      Let's compare violent crime rates per 100K people: US 466, UK 2034

      A bullshit comparison that has been debunked often before. The definitions used for "violent crime" are totally different in either country, so it is impossible to compare the stats in any sensible way.

  2. Tent camp! by s.petry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The leaders of the so called free world promptly laid their coats over their laps after reading that little tidbit. I'm sure they were also wondering "How long till we can do that here?"

    Just to be fair, I'm sure Merkel and Hillary had to cover their laps as well for similar "problems".

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  3. Bradley Manning by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And yet when Bradley Manning makes an eerily similar statement plenty of people are willing to take it as proof positive that he was a bad guy.

    1. Re:Bradley Manning by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And yet when Bradley Manning makes an eerily similar statement plenty of people are willing to take it as proof positive that he was a bad guy.

      The definition of patriotism is believing your country is the best country on Earth simply because you were born in it. Nobody's national anthem starts with "We're Number Two!" So when America says someone's bad, americans believe it, but nobody else does. When the Chinese say someone's bad, the chinese people believe it, but nobody else. And so on, and so on.

      Nationalism is hardly a problem confined to America; It blinds people equally the world over. Here's some Russian propaganda about American, and here's some American propaganda about Russians. It's all the same.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    2. Re:Bradley Manning by s.petry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wrong! The first rule you learn in the US Army is that you are to uphold the Constitution and defend the citizens. You also learn that you are not to obey orders that are unlawful and therefor illegal.

      Wear the Uniform and learn the job before you spout off bullshit propaganda. I proudly served my country defending it's citizens, consider myself to be pro-USA, and would have done exactly the same thing as Manning under the same circumstances.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  4. Oblig Orwell by Bookworm09 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He loved Big Brother.

  5. i wonder what they threatened him with by ClassicASP · · Score: 3, Insightful

    i gotta think people in china are intelligent enough to know this is a forced confession. and china's govt has to know their population is intelligent enough to know this. they're just basically making example of this guy as a message to its population to say "we can make you do whatever we want". i bet they threated to lobotomize the guy or something like that.

    1. Re:i wonder what they threatened him with by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      they're just basically making example of this guy as a message to its population to say "we can make you do whatever we want".

      As they say in China: Kill the chicken to scare the monkey.

  6. Translation ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They threatened me and my family, and the only way I can escape prison or a firing squad is to publicly denounce this.

    I do not believe this is anything other than agreeing to repeat the party line under duress.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  7. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! by jcwuffah · · Score: 3, Informative

    O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”

  8. So, in other words: by kheldan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..he was black-bag arrested, subjected to torture, beaten, starved, thrown in an oubliette for a time, threatened with death, had his friends and family threatened with all the above, and likely drugged, until he finally broke and was willing to say anything they wanted him to say, no matter the cost to him or his reputation, and no matter how humiliating. Next he'll probably "commit suicide", leaving behind a note explaining how he couldn't live with the guilt and shame for having spoken such lies about the glorious and just Communist government of China.

    Yeah, sure. Sounds like just another normal day in mainland China.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  9. Let's check on that real quick by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Informative

    The crime rate is 0.001% of what it was pre-ban? So if their crime rate was, say 10 in 100,000 citizens it would now be 1 in 10,000,000 citizens.

    Ok well in the first two months of 2013 2500 people were killed. This is just murder here, we aren't looking at lesser crimes right now (http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/venezuelan-government-recognizes-record-murder-rate). That means we can expect around 15,000 murders this year. By your logic, that means there was 15,000,000 murders last year, or over half their population.

    However if we do a little more looking, in the same article, we discover that no, there was about 16,000 murders last year, meaning this one looks about the same as the last.

    In other words, you are just completely making shit up. If you have to resort to logic that faulty, that far out, that totally made up to support your position, it leads one to ask how valid your position is.