China Bans "Human Flesh Searching"

hackingbear writes The Supreme People's Court, China's top court, has outlined the liabilities of network service providers in a document on the handling of online personal rights violation cases. "Rights violators usually hide in the dark online. They post harmful information out of the blue, and victims just can't be certain whom they should accuse when they want to bring the case to court," said Yao Hui, a senior SPC judge specializing in civil cases. Those re-posting content that violates others' rights and interests will also answer for their actions, and their liability will be determined based on the consequences of their posts, the online influence of re-posters, and whether they make untruthful changes to content that mislead. This essentially tries to ban the so-called human flesh searching. Though this does not stop others from using the chance to highlight the country's censorship problems even though the rulings seem to focus on personal privacy protection.

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Chinese Virgin

[Anonymous Coward]

A Chinese couple get married ... and she's a virgin.

On the wedding night, she cowers naked under the bed sheets as her husband undresses. He climbs in next to her and tries to be reassuring: "My darling, I know this is your first time, and you are frightened. I assure you, I will give you anything you want, I will do anything you want. What do you want?"

"I want number 69" she replies.

"You want beef with broccoli?"

Re:Chinese Virgin

[ShanghaiBill]

Just curious, how is your mandarin?

His knowledge of Mandarin is nonexistent. Otherwise, he would know that confusing L and R is a Japanese thing, not Chinese. R and L are separate phonemes in Mandarin, and are pronounced the same as in English.

When native Chinese speakers learn English, they often have trouble with the TH and V phonemes, which are not used in Mandarin, with syllables ending in consonants other than "n" and "ng", and with compound consonants. My Mandarin speaking spouse said the most difficult English word for her is "twelfth".

On the other hand, Mandarin has phonemes not used in English, such as DZ and TS. They have two different P sounds, depending on whether or not it is aspirated. They also have an additional phoneme, written with an X, that is about halfway between S and SH. My native English ears have difficulty distinguishing that one, and when speaking it, I just memorized the position of my tongue (pressed up against the lower incisors), so now I can speak it, but can't hear it.

Re:Chinese Virgin

[dk20]

My wife is also Chinese so I am familiar with a lot of this.
Among the many differences, Mandarin (Actually Chinese in general) has no concept of Plural so this is anther common mistake they make when speaking English.

English speaker "How many books do you have in your hand?"
Chinese response "Oh, i have three book right now".

Showing Dracula the cross

[DigiShaman]

Let's get to the real heart of the issue here shall we. China, as with all authoritarian regimes is diametrically opposed to anarchy. The Internet = anarchy. Only through a non-government (centralized) community vetting process can the people make order out of the chaos. China abhors the concept of individual freedom and idea such as inalienable rights.

BOOM, Headshot. I nailed it!

Re:Showing Dracula the cross

[AmiMoJo]

What they are doing is not dissimilar to what some western countries are like. For example, (re)posting certain things on Twitter in the UK can land you in jail. Like China, there is no freedom of speech there. Aside from being bad for British citizens it makes it difficult for the UK to criticise China's actions because it is no better.

Before someone says that China is much worse than the UK, it doesn't matter. The principal is the same. The government decides some things unacceptable to say and uses the law to punish people saying them. The fact that two governments have different ideas of what is unacceptable is irrelevant.

Re:Showing Dracula the cross

[Anonymous Coward]

Before someone says that China is much worse than the UK, it doesn't matter. The principal is the same. The government decides some things unacceptable to say and uses the law to punish people saying them. The fact that two governments have different ideas of what is unacceptable is irrelevant.

No argument there, but you did manage to pick the western country with some of the worst free speech laws around.

Granted, it seems like the US has been trying hard to be more like the UK in this regard, but things like libel laws are FAR weaker in the US. You can be punished for what you say in the US, but the burden of proof is on the person making the accusation to demonstrate that what you said was both untrue, and caused harm.

As a Greek that HAD free speech until last month (when the "anti-racist" law that forbits me to say that the dead Jews in WW2 was less than 6 millions, the Black people are not as smart as Chinese, the Muslims want to kill us, e.t.c., got voted) i must inform you that in most -if not all- of (Western) Europe there is no "free speech".
Just a couple of months ago a Swedish politician convicted for "hate" speech just because he mentioned that (and nothing other than that) all the previous year's rapes in Sweden were commited by immigrants - the court decided that despite the fact that this was true (as the court accepted)... mentioning a true fact (and only that) is "hate" speech!!!
In my country (Greece) more than half of the parliament members of our nationalist party (with 10% of all the Greek votes for the European parliament elections 5 months ago) are in jail more than a year now because of such "free" speech...

Re: s/Fresh/Flesh/

[DNS-and-BIND]

Bullshit! It is Japanese people who have trouble with the R/L sounds. Chinese can pronounce R just fine, while L might be a bit off but still understandable and definitely never confused for R.

Chinese can't pronounce TH, V, and short I because those sounds don't exist in their language.

Re:s/Fresh/Flesh/

[AmiMoJo]

Actually most Chinese people can make the L sound without any problems, it's the R sound that they have difficulty with. You see it a lot with Chinese people who speak Japanese, where the 'r' sound is closer to an English 'r' and than 'l'.

It's not by any means a universal problem either. My Chinese girlfriend can make both sounds easily. In fact my name has an L in it but transliterated into Japanese it becomes an R, and since we speak to each other in Japanese she always says it with an R even though she can say it the English way too. I think I prefer the Japanese version anyway.

Re:Soylent green

[davester666]

No. You REALLY don't want to know how they make it yellow.

Re: s/Fresh/Flesh/

[taiwanjohn]

In my experience, it varies from region to region. Some have trouble with V, some don't; some mix up L and R, some don't; most have trouble with terminal consonants. Even when speaking their so-called "common" language, Mandarin, the regional accents can be almost incomprehensible (the way a Texan might have trouble in Ireland, or a Welshman in Wyoming). A perfect example of this was Deng Xiaoping, who was notoriously hard to understand.

This is why Chinese language TV stations (incl. Taiwan, HK, etc) tend to have Chinese subtitles for their Chinese content. A lot of folks, especially in the older generation, just don't speak Mandarin all that well.

Re:What is the summary even about?

[__aaltlg1547]

"Human flesh search" is a method of identifying what/who/what place is in a picture by posting it widely on the internet and encouraging people to tell you what/who/where it is.

There's nothing wrong with that aspect of it and that's not what China is trying to ban. They're trying to ban the use of it to harm and harass people (including government officials). Notable instances of it include people who were driven to suicide because they could not stand the harassment.