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China Says Terrorism, Fake News Impel Greater Global Internet Curbs (reuters.com)
China's ambitions to tighten up regulation of the Internet have found a second wind in old fears -- terrorism and fake news. Chinese officials and business leaders speaking at the third World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen last week called for more rigid cyber governance, pointing to the ability of militants to organize online and the spread of false news items during the recent U.S. election as signs cyberspace had become dangerous and unwieldy. From a report on Reuters: Ren Xianling, the vice minister of China's top internet authority, said on Thursday that the process was akin to "installing brakes on a car before driving on the road." Ren, number two at the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), recommended using identification systems for netizens who post fake news and rumors, so they could "reward and punish" them. The comments come as U.S. social networks Facebook and Twitter face a backlash over their role in the spread of false and malicious information generated by users, which some say helped sway the U.S. presidential election in favor of Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Obama shows once again how he is a global citizen by complaining about Fake News just like China.
Thank you Obama, if only you could save us from Trump.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
China has no freedom of speech recognized in their constitution. They guarantee no one their right to speak out.
So yes, they would indeed be willing to manage the Internet in a way that would permit governing bodies to deny access and remove content.
In their country, I have nothing much to say about it.
In my country, however, I expect the government to protect and defend my rights, speech being among them.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
It seems like a wonderful way to export only real news approved by the despotic government of your choice.
Can you say doubleplusgood?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
China has long been ahead of American Republican idiocy, and as one of the most successful states of the 21st century it will now lead. The internet functions as a global-scale community message board which can not be even be used by the community it was built to serve due to nuisance influences driven by greed. The recent failure of US is a sign of warning of the Russian influence in so called 'unregulated' communications, in fact those are most open to abuse by hidden parties.
Of course, a particular subset of democrats are completely on board with censoring "racists" ... as everyone who disagrees with them is racist.
A lot of liberals in the west are currently labelling conservative websites as "fake news" and demanding they be filtered on Google, Facebook and other sites. The liberals making these censorship demands see themselves as good people and believe that censorship is necessary for the greater good. However, I think they should take a moment to reflect on this article.
The Chinese government isn't exactly known for being champions of freedom and justice. They're known for oppressive censorship of all opposing opinions. They censor and imprison anyone who publicly opposes the Communist Party because they believe the Communist Party is right and just, and that anyone opposed to the communist party is a public menace.
This are a lot of parallels between what the Chinese government is doing and what liberals are doing in the west today. Just as the Chinese are now branding news that the Communist Party doesn't like as "fake news" and censoring it, liberals in the west are branding all news sits they don't like as "fake news" and demanding it be censored. Just as the Communist Party imprisons people who speak out against its agenda, liberals in the west use laws against "hate speech" to silence, publish and imprison people who speak out against their agenda. It's interesting that liberals have become a lot like oppressive dictators and are using the same censorship mechanisms to crush free speech and open debate.
Liberals, do you really want to create a society like China's were freedom of speech is dead and where anyone who speaks out is harshly published?
I thought China's main worry about the Internet was accurate news?
China, and other governments/corporations that finance terrorism and fake news impel greater global circumvention of their attempted curbs.
So there!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
But anyone who has seen this before knows this is just the continuation in an endless march to lock the internet down - and since the people who are fighting that fight have power and the people opposing it do not it will happen eventually.
China is ahead in terms of what exactly? Human rights abuses and tyranny? Okay, you got me on that one. Personal productivity and innovation are pathetically low in China. Most of the advancements come from theft from foreign Governments because oppression stifles both productivity and innovation. If China had a 2nd amendment and right to speech the Government would be overthrown, and the Chinese government knows as much. Which is why Chinese people have neither.
The "American Republican idiocy" you decry is responsible for the overwhelming majority of industrial and technical innovation over the last 200 years (it is actually a shared ideology with much of Western Europe). The last couple decades of push to tyranny is what is causing the downfall, not personal liberty and accountability which lead to our peak.
Tyranny is the problem, not personal liberty.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"Well, they would say that, wouldn't they"
Seriously, I agree that the problem with fake news is disturbing, but the Chinese government's opinion on it is worthless and utterly predictable- a purely self-serving exploitation of the issue intended to rationalise and justify their own repressive behaviour.
I am so tired of all this fake news about Chinese human rights abuse!
Internet: STOP IT Already!
So what's with all this worry now about "fake news"? Is that supposed to make me think that the mainstream garbage is all real? There is more bullshit and native ads on local, nightly, and 24 hour news then ever, but we are concerned about what someone deems "fake news"? The "fake news" could be substituted for "news we deem fake". The "we" being whoever wants to claim it is with out really having to prove so. It's the DMCA come to the news cycle. This leads to controlled propaganda news that has less truth to it than what we have now. I laugh like hell when President Obama puts in to a speech that we need to do something about "fake news" yet the Smith Mundt act (google it!) was repelled while he was in office. That's what's even more funny, that since Trump won the election the news channels and the democrats have carried on about a vast array of "thing we need to change" like they are actually going to do something and we are supposed to ignore the last 8 years. I am not for one party or the other, but what they are doing is like a husband getting caught cheating and continuing to tell his wife how their marriage should mean something. It's like a criminal telling a judge that they should do something with the system after they got caught.
Fake "news" from unreliable sources are not the problem, under-educated people are who trust the unverified sources are. There was once a profession called "journalist." Maybe something like that could be once again trained in the schools, without forgetting ethics from the curricula. Perhaps somebody could pay them a salary enough to live on and give rewards for accomplishments in the field as well, who knows. The alternative of providing education to the population which enables them to think critically and independently and be responsible for their actions can't ever happen in the US, or can it?
Why all of the sudden is there so much fuss over fake news? Growing up I was always told to believe only half of what I see, hear, or read from any news source. The real trick was knowing which half to believe. Granted I would modify this to about 10% now, still the idea is that all media should be treated as suspect, look for the source and who has something to gain or loose from the story, then judge the worth of the news. Still sound advice.
Now I get the whole notion that fake news stories are suppose to have thrown the election, but really. I can't think of one person I came into contact within months prior to the election who didn't already know who they were voting for and nothing was going to change their minds. Also, looking at how the nation voted broken down into regions shows exactly what I would expect, heavily populated areas on the coast would vote for liberal policies, these would also be the people most likely to get their news from online sources. The parts of the county that have more conservative views and tend to spend as much time online voted as expected. So how is it possible that those that would be effected the most by bad news still voted for liberal politics and that gave the election to the conservatives?
Sorry, the only thing I see is that the current controlling party is trying to wedge an even further gap between the media and the public so that anything can be called a lie and nobody will doubt the claim.
No, the election was won or lost because someone didn't realize that this is a democratic "Republic", we the people of a state choose those that will represent us as a state. This is the very reason we have the House and the Senate. In the House each person has an equal say, but in the Senate each state has an equal say, in the end both branches must agree for something to pass. If this weren't the case then states with large populations could pass unfair laws that affected other states with no recourse; and if only states mattered then a large number of states could pass legislation that targets states with large populations and not them. So the election was won or lost because someone didn't understand that concept and only targeted the largest populations, not the largest representation.
Or, we could educate people on how to determine what a credible source is and teach people critical thinking skills.
Most of the "fake news" articles were blog posts, reddit threads, and sites that popped up to pander to fears for advertising dollars. Stuff that was easy to spot as being fake.
Yeah, sometimes I would see the "fake" sites come up with a real story a couple days before everyone else did, but generally the real sites were better researched and less blatantly biased than the "fake" article.
I'm interested in hearing some examples of this widespread "fake news" problem. Can anyone link to some? All I've found so far is the usual biased news from the main media corps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNaiZcUZXus&feature=share
Same as the USA, I think....
Everyone hates competition. It's only natural any government would want a monopoly on telling lies.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
I think we need to be careful lumping fake news with left and right leaning bias. Bias is a narrative based on facts. Fake news is fabricated facts to fit a narrative. Many times, the two are difficult to tell apart. Any news site that leans predominantly one way or another is suspect of one or the other. CNN and Fox news will many times have the same stories which report facts, but with the difference being their narrative. Fake news will not be on either website but will still have a left or right leaning narrative. Most news is unfortunately opinion pieces to fit a particular echo chamber depending on the audience. Fake news is a form of fraud in my opinion, and the only place for it is The Onion. While there should be fact checking of all stories on the internet, I'don't believe that it's the job of the government to police the content. Sadly it doesn't seem to be the job of corporate owned news anymore either. It's up to the readers now to sniff out the bullshit and call news sites on fake news. It's the price we pay for getting free news instead of paying for it. We now get the quality of news that we pay for. Free means click bait that prays on fear, echo chamber and entertainment, with little time spent on fact checking or depth of content. Someone has to pay the bills of journalists, and it stopped being the readers awhile ago.
How fake news look like:
1) Radical misandrist Ellen Wulfhorst (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellen-wulfhorst-6ab9838) linked to Clinton campaign writes fake artitcle on Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/us-rights-sexism-mentalhealth-idUSKBN13G1WN
2) Articles is quotted in media everywhere, from Fox News, to international media
3) No one questions the validity of the Source of the news, and fake news spread like wildfire.
An internet version of "papers please"; which Facebook and Google have been trying to enforce merely with the threat of taking away all your internet 'friends'. Chinese police, like most police, tend to not go looking for petty criminals but that conservation of resources doesn't apply to the internet. The internet means a bot can do all the snooping and looking, allowing the police to catch every transgression of their rules with the press of a button.
Remember that Australia and the UK have a snooper's charter, that allows the government to know everything you've done online; all without needing your real name posted online. The point of a real name is two-fold: 1) The police can track you with minimum effort; 2) Everyone else can track you.
Yeah sure thing Chinese government, because terrorists and other 'bad guys' never had any way of organizing before the advent of the Internet. What a load of horse shit!
Also, the Internet is all to blame for fake news stories, because no one ever in Human history since the invention of 'news' has ever misreported anything, or made shit up to sway public opinion, either. Of course the Chinese government never indulges in fake news or propaganda themselves, now do they? {/sarcasm}
Oh and just a reminder: Anyone that busts out with "America is no better" should have the person next to them slap the shit out of them for saying it, and shills for the Chinese government can just keep their mouths shut and hands off their keyboards, we don't give a damn what you have to say, you're blindingly obvious, so don't even bother.
We need an impartial AI with a built in sense of humour, which can first analyze the credibility and objectivity of each news story and purported fact, and can then heap the appropriate amount of deserved witty ridicule on the blatantly false or heavily unreasonably biased "news" stories and facts.
Its code should be FOSS so that it can be seen to be an objective reasoning and learning algorithm. It must apply its own "truth"/"credibility" ranking to all the data it uses to build up its common-sense knowledge base too, of course, to avoid it being corrupted by one side or another. In fact, detecting whose "side" a particular story or fact or distortion thereof serves is the thing's main job. Knowing for what purpose something was likely said is one of the most important factors in determining the likely objectivity and truth value in the utterance.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Fake news might be a problem, which has been extremely sensationalized in the past few months, but authoritarianism wouldn't make it any better. If anything, it'd just take fake news to it's ultimate consequences. Better to have fake news that are exposed as fake than having fake news spread by a government that will turn them into real news at their own convenience.
Education, better critical reasoning, being able to tell what is better for yourself and in turn for your country will always be the more difficult but ultimately better route.
Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes will always try to appeal to people's sense of fear and inaction.
People who want the state/government to take control of every aspect of their lives can move to a country like North Korea to see how it's like. They have tons of "real news" to share with you, how their leader is God on Earth, how their country is the best, how their technology is the most advanced, etc.
So yeah Ren Xianling, you can shove your promotion of censorship up your ass. I can handle what I choose to believe myself on the Internet. And the last organization I'll trust to select what I should and should not hear is the government. Very precious coming from a government that actively puts people in jail and blocks webpages that talks about Tianamen Square protests, having some backwards moral police with feet firmly planted back in the dark ages with a whole lot of puritanism going on, among some other ridiculous stuff.
I personally don't have any problems with chinese people, companies and ideas... but get the f*ck outta here with their politics. Country where a bunch of people kill themselves because they feel trapped into workplaces with no welfare and no human rights... what a great government. And if you dare complaining about it, you end up in jail for spreading some "fake news" . heh
Politics and Parties aside:
The right to free speech comes great responsibility.
The heavy-handed approach that China is taking to the "fake news" problem is fundamentally different than ours. What works for them cannot work for us. In the US, we have a long history of protected speech and we would not be where we are now if we didn't. We are a country of people from all parts of the world. Free speech is a fundamental tool we use to find common ground.
Obnoxious and repugnant forms of speech are protected -- for good reason -- in the United States. The purpose of free speech is to promote alternative view points and guarantee our liberty through discourse. That said, there are forms of speech that can be used to cause harm to others.
In the case United States v. Schenck (1919), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used the concept that shouting "Fire" in a theater was not protected speech. Incitement to commit criminal acts, obscenity, and a few other very specific things are also not considered as protected speech.
Now, to the point, freedom of the press is also guaranteed by the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution. It specifically codifies the right to publish without government restriction and subject only to the laws of libel, sedation, obscenity, and so on. Again, these laws are in place to guarantee our liberty.
Based on the summary above, I have a question:
All else equal, is a "fake news" article protected if it contains false information designed to scare or panic people into reading it for the purpose of profiting the writer?
Government control is not "installing brakes in your car". It is giving the control of your brakes (and everything else in the car, including the view through the windshield) to the government, so that you can only drive on approved roads.
Nearly a hundred years ago, an Austrian corporal rose to power in Germany by blaming Germany's loss in WW1 on being "stabbed in the back" by Jews. Let's just say that did not end well.
The Democrats' elite tilted the playing field to ensure Hillary Clinton a victory in the primaries. Given her scandals and political baggage, she was the absolute worst possible candidate they could've picked. Any no-name Democrat representative/senator/governor would've walked all over Trump. But no, they insisted on Hillary, and ran a lousy campaign to boot.
Now the Democrats' establishment is refusing to take the blame, and is going after social media, and the web in general. If you think Chinese web censorship is bad, wait until the next Democrat president in the US.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
installing brake on a car. It is more like brake is already installed and it is configured to be always on brake without a way to off
China is moving hard on the fake news thing because they couldn't stand it if the US got more censorious than they are....
The last bastion of freedom lies in the migration of actual libertarians to New Hampshire. The government to whatever minimal extent it exists should have no power to thrust laws on people for which there was no act of violence, fraud, theft, or coercion. You can't justify the means via the ends and all other laws are dependant on the use of violence to enforce. We should not lock people up who refuse to pay taxes. We should not utilise force to redistribute wealth. There is a place for charity for sure- but it lies in the hands of the masses and should not be redistributed at the end of a gun. There should be no theft by tax payer funded government indoctrination programs ('public schools'), social security programs, welfare programs, or similar. If these programs are worth partaking in then let someone setup voluntary participation equivalents outside the government and not have them be thrusted upon the population at the barrel of a gun. Nobody should be required to seek permission to travel via whatever method of transportation of the day is. We are not suppose to be slaves of the state. We shouldn't have to ask permission to open businesses. So long as nobody else is being harmed there should be no law.
If you believe in liberty and are against the use of violence to achieve political and social aims check out the Free State Project. Check out this migration movement that's making New Hampshire the first liberty-friendly utopia. There is a long way to go but the thousands of people who have migrated are already making it a great place to live. Check out: http://ww.freestateproject.org/ http://www.freekeene.com/ http://www.freetalklive.com/ http://www.porcfest.org/
...coming from China who has been waging an information and economic war on the west for decades now.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
This is weird China feels the need to discuss the motivations of Internet control. For now they just moved unilaterally to regulate their sovereign space.
is anyone surprised the Chinese government shitstains would find this intimidating and that it needs "control"?
Fuck off authoritarian monsters, may your people put you on pikes
Are they still using dial up? ;) LOL
Just joking
Yes, the Chinese should be free to elect their own Trump !
That will make them a worthy country again...
We have crowd peering or something similar. But they have a centralized office telling us how to do or not. I want to find some fake news, I cannot discern them until someone tells me it is fake, though you should see what the local tabloid calls news. Just post a fakenews website with URLs and comments.
They are both LEFTIST.
Communist, Socialist, National Socialist, etc are ALL animals from the left side of the barn yard!
Your observation is a bit like being surprised that bass are wet and swim in water just like trout... they're both FISH.
I'll be generous and presume you simply did not know that the post-WWII left in America cloaks itself in the term "liberal", which in classical political terms would be a positive thing. America's founders were all "classical liberals" in that they supported the rights of individuals over those of the government. Leftists, however, tend to prefer redistributive/Marxist economics which require the compulsive force of big government, which makes them embrace the rights of government over the individual making them anti-liberal. They pretend to be "liberal" on social issues, but actually expose themselves as actually anti-liberal there too as they use the force of government to force individuals to "tolerate" their social positions...