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China Orders Internet Comments Linked To Real Identities (engadget.com)
A (truly) anonymous Slashdot reader quotes Engadget:
China isn't slowing down in its bid to silence online political opposition. As of October 1st, the country will require that tech firms hold on to records of the real identities of everyone posting comments on internet message boards. This is to discourage "false rumors, filthy language and illegal messages," according to the government. Of course, it's that last part that Chinese officials are really interested in -- they know you're less likely to challenge the political order if investigators can easily track you down.
The timing of this identity requirement, the VPN restriction and other crackdowns (such as an investigation into internet giants for allowing material that "harms the social order") isn't coincidental. China's ruling party has its next national congress later in 2017, and it has a habit of ramping up censorship around these gatherings to discourage criticism of party policies.
The timing of this identity requirement, the VPN restriction and other crackdowns (such as an investigation into internet giants for allowing material that "harms the social order") isn't coincidental. China's ruling party has its next national congress later in 2017, and it has a habit of ramping up censorship around these gatherings to discourage criticism of party policies.
Fuck China.
There are calls by bureaucrats for similar measures in the EU to do the same thing. It's not as crazy as some people think.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
Facebook can do business as its own wishes, and yet not be doing the same thing at all as a government compelling all businesses.
As usual, Dumb-and-Buffoonish, you can't bother to get past your own mendacity.
Of course, Facebook was not even the first to implement such a system, so you couldn't even get that right.
any day now. Yup. Any day now. Right after we call out Saudi Arabia for it's civil rights abuses and treatment of women. In other news, the new iPhone 8 looks pretty sweet.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
No, it's pretty crazy. What is crazy is not seeing the absurdity of this. It's kinda disappointing that people ignore the value of anonymous speech. When faced with retaliation, you tend to not feel comfortable freely expressing yourself.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I think we're doing great. Don't let Russian information warriors tell you how to think, because we're doing just fine.
Who cares? Let them learn the hard way what happens when legitimate dissent becomes impossible. It'll be spectacular to watch when it does happen.
Hundreds of millions will probably die again .That's ancient Chinese wisdom for you.
On-line censorship in the U.S. is going in a similar direction though the methods being used are a bit different.
In the U.S.:
* Most visit a relatively limited number of sites controlled by large corporations that collect and aggregate data. One's identity is far from private.
* Many read much of the news from social media sites, in particular, Facebook. News aggregators, in particular, Google News tend to show news from a relatively few sources, such as NY Times, Washington Post, and CNN. Bias is very evident.
* DNS (suspending / deleting one's domain name) is the ultimate way to, in effect, censor information off the internet. Sure, it's technically still hosted somewhere, but if it's not easily accessible to the public at-large, it might as well not be.
It's very disconcerting how many people assume censorship only concerns the government. Companies by and large have significant control over people's lives. In some aspects of life, such as the internet, more than the government does. Many make the argument that companies are private and can do whatever they want in regards to censorship. However, when a company controls much of a critical infrastructure, that argument, in my view, is a weak one.
DNS is a critical part of the internet. Some portions of it can't function without it. Try sending an email to an IP address. Sure it might get through, but will likely be dropped. Worse, if the IP is shared and/or dynamic, follow-up replies may bounce. So when a domain registrar, such as GoDaddy, suspends / deletes a domain, they've effectively censored the content associated with it.
Corporate entities are government constructs. More to the point, companies can't just do whatever they want. Public accommodation comes to mind. In regards to the internet, domain registrars, ISPs, etc are essentially utilities. Utilities are very restricted in how they operate, including providing service to those in their territory; not able to arbitrarily shutoff service.
In short, the U.S., while the methods are different, is going down the same path as China in regards to censorship.
Hopefully, it's headed off at the pass before much of the internet becomes censored. Encryption, etc is of limited effectiveness when the end-points aren't fully secured. The solution, sad to say, is government regulation; internet neutrality requiring domain registrars, co-location facilities, ISPs, and email providers, to name a few, to operate as utilities not as dictators who block / delete whatever they don't like.
They have no particular power at all. Besides, you're twenty or thirty years too late to the party. McDonalds, Phillip Morris, Exxon, they're much deeper than a new upstart.
You know it is a whole lot more likely that we get to where the chinese, and many other countries, are through the back door, of lawsuits, liability judgements and insurance companies. Western societies are often more constrained by such than by actual law and government regulation.
Attempting to shout down legitimate criticisms with "TEH COMMIEZ DID IT" is what led to Brexit in the first place. But keep it up please, we wouldn't want you to win any elections any time soon. Seriously...TEH COMMIEZ is your whole argument? LOL.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Gee, it seems that our current president, constantly berating fake news and attacking his critics personally, not to mention inciting members of his base to ‘action’ is the one who really wants to silence the opposition and instill fear in the populace.
RUSSIAN SHILL DETECTED
Yes, that is exactly how brain-dead reactionary Liberal puppets act. Excellent job at parodizing how ridiculously stupid and short sighted they are.
I didn't mention, nor infer, either end of the political spectrum. If you're curious, I'm pretty damned leftist. Free speech is/was once a very left view to hold.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Instead of worrying if it is a bot, try judging the speech on its merits and not on the source.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Who is the arbiter of legitimate dissent?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Actually, China is a right-winger dream: uber-capitalist, lax regulations, no meaningful minimum wage, no environmental protection. Add to that an authoritarian government that doesn't tolerate anything non-traditional (LGBTs, foreign religions, porn) and you get the wet dreams of right-wingers.
Funny, that sounds like a perfect recipe for short-sighted destruction. Well, I guess it's not funny.
It's time to get out the antitrust laws. Break up Facebook!
Hagbard Celine's Second Law:
"Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation."
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
With all due respect i've been sitting watching this shitty website degrade for almost 20 years and you don't get to dictate to me what is or is not slashdot
THAT SAID
WHO THE FRACK CARES ABOUT THE POLITICAL ALIGNMENT OF FUNCTIONS
Trump wants to know who is talking about him!
Linking your comments to a real identity isn't the same as eliminating anonymity. Your screen name could be obfuscated, but the account behind it isn't, if someone comes in with a warrant. That's how it was for decades on USENET, but there wasn't ever a problem. Many trolled behind fake names, but those that posted kiddie porn were traced to an account (under a real name, with a real credit card, usually both stolen). That the comments sections on Slashdot and elsewhere have true anonymous posting doesn't change that most do not allow true anonymous now, and a court order could get your home address for Google (usually, even if you used a fake name and fake address).
Learn to love Alaska
Right. So, how do we realistically fix it?
I'm pretty sure the solution isn't draconian laws and suppression of expression. Damned if I know how to get others to actually research and reason, however. The solution doesn't appear to be education, we're more educated than we've ever been.
Sometimes I think we should burn it down and start over. Yet, I suspect we will just end up right back here.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I am unfamiliar with that law. It seems true.
As I was saying, if I can threaten you or your family, I can probably ensure you say exactly what I want. North Koreans know their government sucks, they also know where they will end up for vocalizing that.
We need the freedom to express ourselves. Even the Nazis deserve that freedom.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
With Identities being required on China tech firms. Now all we need is a website breach on those tech firms to get BEELLIONS of FREE real identities for SELL!
There's a reason why some data are better not kept.
Except most right-wingers espouse a minimalist Federal government, are pro-firearms-rights, anti-abortionists, religious, and generally favor a strict constructionist interpretation of the US Constitution, with all those pesky individual rights enumerated. Yeah, definitely a right-winger's paradise there.
Authoritarian governments don't really favor the left OR right. They just favor themselves.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Pseudonymity is fine if you have 'safe' views and opinions. Challenge the wrong people or thoughts and the veil is removed, you're exposed, it gets nasty.
Have you been in China? It is so capitalist that Ayn Rand would hide under her bed after seeing it. And state companies are nigh indistinguishable from US-style monopolies. Minimum wage is not meaningful, it's not survivable and even that is violated left and right. Tons of factories are STILL open as you can see by looking at the air in Beijing, more often than not regulations are used to extort (small) bribes. Actually, pretty much all regulations are as lax as you want them to be for a small sum.
As an example, my friend lives near a 24-hour construction site. The work is supposed to stop at 10pm but it continues throughout the night, with the associated noise.
To its credit, Chinese government is trying to stop the wild unbridled free market and at least force people to obey some laws. Turns out that living inside a pure capitalism is hell.
I can't see how this will do anything outside of censor China's own great firewall.
Most right-wingers do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT advocate for minimalist government. They're perfectly fine with government that hangs gays and kicks minorities and enforces strict "morality". And don't get me started on "individual rights", they don't care about anything but gun-fondling. Yep, China would be their perfect country.
I mean, this is Slashdot, which brands anonymous comments as "cowards" to begin with. It seems to me nobody, including the site's administration, has a legitimate argument against anonymous comments.
The best argument against anonymous commenting on Slashdot is about two-thirds of the anonymous comments.
Every country deserves the government it has
It's already bad enough that they use our oil and eat our corn!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And so the pendulum swings. Half a century ago, that was firmly the tactics of the right. Didn't work that well back then either, as the success of the civil rights movement showed.
And so this will fail. It simply has to. I don't really think the right will be chicken when the left wasn't either. And back then it wasn't just about comfort, these people risked their fuckin' life!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We're just 8% maybe, but we have more than 80% of the weapons, power and money.
And knowing that I can sleep easy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Guess what, in Europe we have both kinds of free!
Don't know why you think it has to be either-or.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Maybe, but what matters is how you wear it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Translation: I upped my DDoS resilience and am humbly requesting a stress test.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When faced with retaliation, you tend to not feel comfortable freely expressing yourself.
At least, not with words. Anonymous acts of violence, though...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's from the Illuminatus Trilogy. Give it a read... you may like it.
(I'll let somebody else post the amazon affiliate link to the book.)
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
That is no longer an option for liberals or people that want to have their respect. Toe the line or else is the current climate. Simply not showing enough anger and outrage fast enough will get you labeled as a Nazi-sympathizer, misogynist, or racist. It no longer even matters if the subject being discussed is related to those terms.
You want respect? Just come with grownup arguments instead of schoolyard bullshit. No, you don't have to agree with everything; there isn't even general agreement. However, the left is getting extremely tired of all the incessantly repeated bullshit, pretzel logic, and carefully dishonest talking points that are being spouted about climate change, racism, supremacy movements, and the appalling incompetence and corruption of the current US president.
But it's the left who have no argument. That's why they want to ban anyone who disagrees with them: they know they lose if everyone is free to speak.
But it's too late. You can't stop the signal.
Then why do the lefties love it so much?
Turdeau in particular seems to orgasm every time he thinks about China.
The hilarious part is that you complain about the treatment of GBLTs, religions and porn, which are policies retained from their Communist era (as, for that matter, is their complete disregard for worker safety and environmental damage). Communists have no time for GBLTs and religions, and regard environmentalism and porn as a threat to productivity.
But, hey, SJWs always project.
The Nazis based their anti-Jewish laws on the anti-black laws from the Democrat south. Except the Nazis decided those laws went too far, and toned them down for Nazi Germany.
Democrats were literally considered TOO RACIST by the Nazis.
That's also b'cos the US has never had any global ambitions: everything anyone wants - from the Grand Canyon to Death Valley to the Colorado Rockies to the Alaskan Slopes to the Malibu Beaches to the Florida Everglades to the Appalachian Mountains - they're all contained within the US. And then there's Vegas, if one wants any of the exotic wonders, such as the Eiffel. It's a part of the reason that the US was never a colonial power (except for a few islands that they seized after the Spanish-American War). As a results, Americans can be excused for not being interested in the world outside America/the Americas.
It's not that we don't know that there's a world outside the US: it's just that we're happy to leave that world to their people, and hope they leave us alone in return. However, the Europeans - after having their butts handed to them by the people they colonized and now in their own countries by Muslims - have yet to get that memo.
Except that by now, American English is pretty much recognized as a language distinct from British English. Which one would see from Rosetta Stone, or from the fact that when you select a language from phone settings, American English and British English are 2 separate choices.
I'm sure the Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders would have liked their entries as well
I wonder how Millennials don't get accused of being Nazis as well. Have you seen their dance?
Negative. You're talking out your ass, you have no idea what you're saying. " And state companies are nigh indistinguishable from US-style monopolies." What does that even mean? They are owned directly by the government. When government owns big companies, that's not capitalism. Minimum wage is not meaningful? WTF is this crap? Nobody works for minimum wage, not even convenience store clerks. Violated left and right? No fucking way, people won't work for less than about 3000 yuan a month right now and it's just getting higher all the time. Beijing isn't the factory capital, it's the political capital and anything that happens there is by definition atypical.
"Actually, pretty much all regulations are as lax as you want them to be for a small sum." That is just wrong, wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong. Anyone who pays a bribe is a fool.
You're talking out your ass and have no idea what you're saying. You just have a conclusion you wish to reach - MUH CAPITALISM - and you discard all logic and invent shit until you get there. China's changing, bigtime. It's not 2008 any more, which is where your ideas seem to date from.
How did this blatant straw man attack get modded up?!
What? Pointing out that righties enjoy big government? Of course, only when it is against _them_ (black people, atheists, muslims, immigrants). It's always been true.
If you put most 'right wingers' into the reality they think they're advocating, they'd be horrified; they're playing right into the hands of Dominionists. Go look up that word for a description of the kind of world they want. Be sure your stomach is empty first though.
He began by saying most mexicans were what rapists and worst, with only some being good people.
When you can't even get the facts straight from a year ago... It's hard to take your comment seriously talking about what education we need for history when you fail so spectacularly.
false simplification
Kind of like what you just did. Do you think making the distinction between Mexican people, Mexican immigrants and illegal Mexican immigrants is a distinction worth mentioning when talking about immigration policy or platform and any speech associated with such topics?
We need sceptical people who take the time to get the truth,
Those people are branded as racist, sexist, xenophobes, or nazi apologists. They get fired from their jobs and branded as pariahs. There is no debate worth having if it costs you your livelihood and then all the polls will get it wrong when the lever is pulled in an anonymous voting booth.
It doesn't matter how you try or how well positioned your argument. If it is against the dogmatic religion of social justice you are already a nazi apologist. If you don't support the correct politician you are a Russian propagandist. I have been called both for having an opinion. Shame on me.
What? Pointing out that righties enjoy big government? Of course, only when it is against _them_ (black people, atheists, muslims, immigrants). It's always been true.
Which "righties" are you talking about?
As far as I can tell American conservatives have always been in favor of limited government.
I'll look it up. Thanks.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
they don't reek of lies, deceits, and frauds at all!
I know you'd like to thank your shit don't stank but lean a little bit closer See that roses really smell like poo-oo-ooo.
lol, ur a funny little guy aren't you. so cute. i bet you are the center of attention in party. women want to be with you men want to be like you.
truly a model citizen for us all to follow. now tell me. who do i need to punch to be as hip as you ?
Please don't make statements about "most [anything]" without linking to statistical survey evidence to support your statements.
It's both hilarious and telling that you make this demand of me even though everything I stated can be found in the Wikipedia article under Conservationism in the United States, the precepts of which are broadly acknowledged without "statistical survey evidence". Yet you completely ignore the GP who made absurd claims about how "right-wingers" (note the lack of qualifiers, which implies all right wingers) would somehow find Totalitarian/Communist China some sort of utopia, a completely absurd and indefensible claim. Of the major tech corporations doing business there like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, you can't exactly classify their CEOs as "right-wingers".
I'm even willing to back-pedal a bit from my claim about "most anything", because you're technically correct, which is the best type of "correct" for pedantic arguments. So instead, I'll simply state that these are general principles espoused by the Conservative political movement in US politics, which is an indisputable fact. Whether that is represented by "right-wingers" as indicated in the GP's post, I'll leave open to debate, but that's a pretty common correlation to make.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Righties in the US always _say_ that they are in favor of limited government. Yet when they get the power they immediately use it to expand government's power. Pretty much every time, under different guises: "tough on crime", "uphold morality", "free enterprise", etc.
Agreed. So spank the "conservatives" when they expand government power.
And we should always, consistently, vote to decrease government power in every election.