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Chinese Gov't To Tighten Internet Controls Even Further

Posted by timothy on from the razing-the-global-village dept.

jfruh writes "The new Chinese leadership released a document outlining its vision for the country Friday, and most of the attention was paid to reforms, like plans to loosen state control of the economy and end the one-child policy. But when it comes to the Internet, the Chinese Communist government is doubling down on its restrictive policies. The document notes that social networking and instant messaging tools can rapidly disseminate information and mobilize society; the government doesn't think those are good things, and plans to bolster its regulatory systems and increase the scope of their legal authority."

9 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. The trend in China by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    More economic freedom, social freedom is mixed, and continuing or tighter political control.

    It will be interesting to see if they continue the trend of relatively more economic freedom into the future since the new leadership is harkening back to the old ways. "Where are the true communists?"

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  2. at least they're honest by noh8rz10 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    tfs:

    The document notes that social networking and instant messaging tools can rapidly disseminate information and mobilize society; the government doesn't think those are good things

    This is what I love about China. They're completely up front about who they are. In the US everything needs to be carefully cloaked in terms of protection from terrorists.

    1. Re:at least they're honest by ebno-10db · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is what I love about China. They're completely up front about who they are. In the US everything needs to be carefully cloaked in terms of protection from terrorists.

      Every country has it's bogeymen (a/k/a government excuses). Here it's "terrorism", over there I think "social disharmony" or some such . The funny thing about manure is that it smells the same wherever you go.

    2. Re:at least they're honest by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If a 9/11 scale attack occurred in the US every month, you'd still be statistically more likely to die in a car accident than in a terror attack. The degree to which we fear terrorism relative to the actual risk is way out of proportion. If someone proposed things like indefinite detention or wide scale monitoring to prevent bad driving, they'd rightly be seen as a paranoid nut.

    3. Re:at least they're honest by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And I think the government did more to inconvenience and harass most people after the bombing than the actual terrorists did.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    4. Re:at least they're honest by cold+fjord · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If a 12 / 7 / 1941 attack occurred on the US every month in 1941, you'd still be statistically more likely to die in a car accident than in a Japanese attack. The degree to which people confuse the significance of random chance accidents versus deaths caused by willful human action is appalling. Indefinite detention is how prisoners of war are held. Indefinite detention isn't really appropriate for traffic incidents short of murder.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  3. Re:BUT SNOWDEN by Antipater · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's like saying we shouldn't have had a Civil Rights movement because at least we weren't killing our minorities like Germany did; we were just oppressing them.

    "Y is worse than X" does not mean that X is not also bad.

    --
    Everything is better with chainsaws.
  4. Re:BUT SNOWDEN by game+kid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, it's not wise to stop holding our government to account. I'd rather the US set an example for the worse countries by reining in its bribe-happy CIA, bringing the troops home from profit wars, closing GTMO, and stopping espionage that is not required to stop a known and imminent threat to lives.

    Or I guess we can adopt the motto "Still more tolerant and less bloody than Genghis Khan!" but it doesn't quite radiate that exceptional aura.

    --
    You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  5. What if they went plaintext only? by ModernGeek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Imagine an Internet where anything that wasn't unencoded unicode or ascii where only recognizable dictionary words and standard protocols were allowed.

    Imagine everybody being restricted to running iDevices where they could not install any unauthorized software on their computers.

    Imagine that if it were encrypted, the government always had the private key, and the encryption was only there as a facade. The only public keys you'd have on your machine were the government's decoy keys.

    Imagine if all software developers were targeted by the government with surveillance and public scrutiny to ensure that no illegal tools were being built.

    It isn't that hard to foresee this future.

    --
    Sig: I stole this sig.