Slashdot Mirror
China Bans the Use Of Social Media As a News Source
Mark Wilson, reporting for BetaNews:Continuing its control of the internet, China has announced that news outlets may not use social media as a source of news -- at least not without official approval. The Cyberspace Administration of China says that the move is part of a campaign to prevent the spread of rumors and fake stories, but most people will see it as the government continuing to flex its online muscles. To add weight to its reasoning, the regulator referred to a number of fake news stories that had originated and spread online. It's an interesting new code of conduct, particularly considering the Chinese government floods social media with fake stories of its own.
Censorship would mean I couldn't read your inane rambling at all, it just wouldn't be there. Moderation working as intended
Bring something worthwhile to the conversation of this extremely click-baity article
I don't think we hate on China. We worry about our Chinese brothers/sisters and hope someday things will get better for them.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Oh well, maybe the Chinese people can just use social media for the news themselves, and bypass the middleman.
Eh, more censorship. Circumvention is all we need, not political grandstanding on its merits.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They will probably fire some of those employees that are paid to spread pro gov't BS.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
The Chinese government likes it's own fake news, just not other people's. They are hardly unique in this respect; power always finds a way to justify it's own behaviour. But those other people, over there? Why that's fake news, terrible!
Just anecdotally there's been a seriously offensive uptick in trolling on Slashdot today - I wonder if that's related. I haven't modded this article but did others. Whilst most I modded were positive contributions, there was a whole lot of junk at the beginning which (in my view) needed to be lost. I see people have 'graced' us with such a thread in this article too.
Because the ruling class and working class are different things with different goals?
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When can the west follow suit? Speaking of, why do we even go to news sites anymore when all they do is post screenshots of someone's tweet?
When was that time, exactly? The 19th century? That's the only era I can think of when China was weak enough to manipulate. American attempts to play Taiwan (ROC) against China sure didn't bear much fruit, even when we were using China's UNSC seat as leverage, nor did any form of diplomatic protest from the cultural revolution through Tananmen cause any change at all. In fact the only way the USA did manage to influence China was by stopping the saber rattling and opening up trade to help coax them from communism into capitalism.
Apparently he doesn't care about your notion of "power" as much as about economic success. Growing the largest and most stable economy in the world at a rate faster than the rest of the developed world has more tangible benefits than a dick waving contest.
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The US has no power which seems to have been Obama's goal all along.
You still don't understand the way this works?
Obama may very well have been sincere about his intentions and his campaign promises when he first ran for president. When he actually got in, though, the first thing he learned was that the same monied powers who put him there can also bring him down. No one achieves president through personal merit. You achieve it by tremendous political, financial, and media support. There are strings attached to receiveing this support. It is not a free gift offered from the kindness of their hearts.
I don't know if they do it through sheer political clout and money power, or if they show a new president the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before, or if they support candidates they can easily blackmail, if they simply remind him that he can't do shit without support from Congress which is bought and paid for, or how exactly the control is exerted. It's probably a combination of approaches but I can tell you, these people play hardball. But the president is little more than a figurehead, a front man, a public representative of the actual power in Washington. It's been that way for a long time now.
So no, that's not "Obama's goal". No goal Obama personally has will be of any consequence. His goals are his owner's goals. It's like when you see a ventriloquist, you might marvel at his skill but you don't really think the puppet is speaking.
I don't think we hate on China. We worry about our Chinese brothers/sisters and hope someday things will get better for them.
Right. In all the nationalism and flag-waving that is often displayed on the 4th of July, it's important to remember the difference between a government and that nation's people.
One can despise the government of China while wanting the best for the people of China. It's the same way I feel about the USA. The US government is a cancer spreading out of control, but I bear no animosity towards American folk. They're the first victims of it.
Hiding posts from view of most users...
Viewers' choice! They can set the desired threshold. So you are wrong...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
When can the west follow suit? Speaking of, why do we even go to news sites anymore when all they do is post screenshots of someone's tweet?
I've often wondered whether someone could "prank" the news media or the police by posting a false twitter feed or video or something.
For example, we see police arresting people for video'ing themselves drunk driving. I wonder if someone could post a video of this, let the police arrest them, then show that it was done on a stage and show a video of the scene being taped. YouTube videos are not evidence by themselves.
Or another example, suppose someone ran a half-dozen twitter accounts with mundane posts generated from bots - simple stuff like "let's go for dinner" and so on. Have them follow each other as if they were friends.
Then, 6 months later, post a video of a burning factory, and have tweets such as "OMG, the police just came to my door, they're evacuating everyone!". Maybe post a fake newscast video which shows the local TV station reporting about a massive fire in a factory that might release toxic chemical gasses or whatnot.
Is it possible is it to prank the major news outlets and get national coverage for an event that doesn't exist?
Is it possible to prank the police to get a trial for an event that didn't exist?
Is it possible to get legislation passed to address an issue that doesn't exist?
(That last one almost happened.)
China bans the modern world... again... for the umpteenth time since, oh... 2000 BC...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
It is censorship. Comments are being suppressed, which is a form of censorship. I won't pretend that all censorship is inherently bad, but it is taking place here. And it really is a problem.
If you post as an AC, it takes a single downmod to be at -1. It doesn't mean that your post is unacceptable to Slashdot, as a whole. Rather, one user disliked your post and was able to put it at -1. That means a lot of users will never see the post and the moderation, if unjust, may never be undone. Furthermore, editors have unlimited mod points and can moderate a single post many times. There's no way to tell how often a post has been moderated or who is doing it.
Moderation also affects your ability to post. If you're logged in and your karma gers low enough, you post at -1 but can only post twice a day. It also affects your ability to moderate. In other words, it greatly affects your ability to participate in the system.
If a single user can very quickly moderate a post to -1, it makes it pretty unlikely that many people will see the post. Also, while its justifiable to censor off-topic posts, flames, and comments with patently false information, a lot of comments also get modded down because they're disagreeable with the prevailing point of view.
The system isn't very good at highlighting good posts. It is, however, very effective at promoting groupthink and suppressing opposing points of view.
I have been moderating at Slashdot for years, and in that time, I have browsed countless 0 and -1 posts. Most of that is complete and utter crap. If you want to post on how evil black people are, if you want to spam every page with comments on "those republicans are evil", "she did it again", "obama wants to kill black people", then YES, you should go to -1, because that is absolute garbage that contributes absolutely nothing. Almost all of the good and insightful posts at 0 eventually wind up at score 5, even though it takes longer, which it should - if you're not willing to lend your words a reputation, then yeah, they have to get by purely on content, which will require you to appeal to whatever the kind of person who reads at 0 is in hopes that they mod you up. If you really want to lend substance to your posts, then you post with a name, because then you actually have some form of punishment for trolling. As to that, trolling itself on Slashdot is absolutely ridiculous these days; some asshole loser, with waaaaaaaaa too much time on her hands floods every story with complete garbage, and it's getting longer and longer. So yeah, it will get modded down, because nobody wants to see it; we can only hope at some point she realizes what a stupid and pointless endeavor it is.
Furthermore, the system of karma works exactly as it's supposed to. If you take up a side in a debate or whatever, you'll almost always get modded up by both sides if you can actually make decent and coherent points. When you write "stup4d obama he against allz de Trumpz", you are just as likely to get modded down as if you wrote s/obama/cruz. If you have been modded down so incredibly often that you have -1 and can only post twice a day, well, maybe you should rethink what you're writing. If 99.99% of people hate it, then just maybe there's something wrong with it - I find it hard to believe someone is so incredibly special that we all immediately, all 99.99% of us, vote down their posts because we're so dumb we don't see the enlightenment in the above. For example, if you flood the story with a bunch of stupid political posts that have absolutely no relation or bearing with the story.
Third, moderation never deletes a post, only hides it. If you are genuinely confident in what you've written, then obviously that's not a problem; you know that anyone who wants to here your side of the story can easily find it by searching at 0. If your genuine goal is to contribute something, then you're obviously focusing on writing good content and not on how high you ca
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
I was in the first 12k users, though annoyingly have lost my password for that account. Yes, have been here for a long time. It's not a natural response - in fact it feels a lot more like the style of other sites leaking in. I'm also on Reddit where you more or less expect this kind of stuff and take the bad with the good, but Slashdot's comments used to not suffer quite so badly from this kind of stuff.
Have just checked - first 14k users, not 12k. I periodically try to recover the account (which doesn't even have a post against it) but without knowing exactly which email I registered it to I can't really prove it's mine. Irritating.
Nothing another "Opium War" can't fix..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Only reason any government would do this is if they have a lot to hide. I wonder when the lid of secrecy will be blown wide open (much like what happened to several shady organizations with the Panama papers). They can't hide their dirty secrets forever ;).
The working class want to enjoy a comfortably, materialistic lifestyle on their limited resources, and so demand low-cost manufactured goods. The ruling class seeks to increase their wealth by selling to the working class at a margin. Both of these goals are served by importing from China.
You should look into creating an account if you actually care. Anon posts start lower in the first place and should bypass the metamod system. You can also adjust your threshold to view negative scored posts and your post starting scores can increase once you build karma. .
But if you cannot even log in, I have little sympathy.
"it's important to remember the difference between a government and that nation's people."
I used to think that too, until Hillary and Trump became our Presidential choices. Now im convinced people get the government they deserve. There is no line between the people and the government, its an excuse, nothing more.
Yup. Non-anonymous posts from posters with decent karma (which you can get quite fast) start at +2. That means it takes more than just one moderator to remove them from view. Now, if you upset 3 moderators, you probably deserved it. I browse at -1 and it's a cesspool.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Right. In all the nationalism and flag-waving that is often displayed on the 4th of July,
There's a difference between "I like my country" and "I want to conquer other countries." One of those is good, and one of those is problematic.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
But how will you vote on an anonymous post if you can't see it?
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."