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China Will Partly Lift Internet Censorship For One of Its Provinces To Promote Tourism (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the baby-steps dept.

In an effort to promote tourism, the southern tropical Chinese island of Hainan will no longer censor its internet. "Visitors to select areas of Hainan will be able to access Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, according to a new plan authorities have put together to turn the province into a free trade port by 2020," reports The Verge. "It's not clear if other banned platforms will be uncensored." From the report: The three-year action plan was published on Thursday, but removed from the local government website by Friday, as spotted by the South China Morning Post. For Hainan, China will lift part of its censorship system, or what's known as the Great Firewall, that blocks access to most foreign social media and news sites. Tourists will be able to enter designated zones in Hainan's two major cities to access Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Other banned foreign social media platforms, like Google, Instagram, or WhatsApp, haven't been mentioned.

Ironically, China appears to be censoring people's reactions to the news that some censorship is being lifted. One user on Weibo commented that people weren't allowed a chance to provide any feedback on the new tourism plan. "Thousands of comments have since been deleted. As if censoring people solved the problem."

44 comments

  1. Admiral Ackbar said it best by TimMD909 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a trap!

    They've basically turned that whole island into a honeypot

    1. Re:Admiral Ackbar said it best by ole_timer · · Score: 1

      more than those sites are for advertisers?

      --
      nothing to see here - move along
    2. Re:Admiral Ackbar said it best by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

      more than those sites are for advertisers?

      We're on Slashdot. Most of us are smart enough not to click on the links ;-)

    3. Re:Admiral Ackbar said it best by ole_timer · · Score: 1

      true enough!

      --
      nothing to see here - move along
    4. Re:Admiral Ackbar said it best by pots · · Score: 1

      There's precedent for this. Hong Kong is mostly free from censorship, and I think Macau has some censorship free areas. It's not about being a honeypot, it's about the fact that Hainan is an island and so there's a physical barrier there to the spread of ideas.

    5. Re:Admiral Ackbar said it best by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      I just visited Macau a few months ago. No filtering or blocking anywhere in the territory as far as I could tell, just like Hong Kong.

      Certain hotels—mostly catering to wealthy/connected foreigners—in major Chinese cities also have unfiltered Internet.

      (I am not going to tell you which ones, sorry.)

      If you bring your phone from home, you can use your own carrier's mobile data unfiltered when you're in China. You'll also pay out the nose for it, but it's there.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    6. Re:Admiral Ackbar said it best by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      There's far more than Hong Kong and Macau in terms of special zones and provinces. China has all sorts of zoning systems where various rules do or don't apply. The most common of these are the special economic zones which promote foreign investment. One example I've seen of a policy in a special economic zones is that foreign companies can punch through the great firewall with a VPN without port blocking or other bans.

    7. Re:Admiral Ackbar said it best by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      Its like the few VPN products that "work" at full speed in China, always. While no other VPN products will work...
      China has the keys so the products work.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  2. Censor Life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is starting to sound as if there were a performance theater show presented at the annual NPC meeting, complimentary ball gags would be distributed at the doors of the Great Hall of the People to ensure a muted audience reaction.

  3. If censorship is good enough for silicon valley by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's good enough for China.

  4. And by partially lift... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...they just mean 'partially modify'.

    Lift implies that these websites will be fully accessible, which I'll believe once I see.

  5. Hainan Resort is a fun map... by bev_tech_rob · · Score: 1

    On Battlefield 4....

    --
    You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
  6. Re:She lifted her leg, and urinated on Donald Trum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can't say I understand the "golden showers" crowd. I just don't see the appeal. Do they deliberately spill drinks on themselves too, or is urine the only mess that has to be cleaned up that "does it" for them?

    One could say the same about the exchange of any bodily fluids. My guess is it's the same thing: 99% of its psychological and 1% of it is the physical act which itself can be heavily simulated alone in masturbation if one merely wants to release endorphins.

    And a prostitute at that. I hope he had her medically examined first. Otherwise, there's no telling what one might catch from bodily fluid contact.

    While urinary tract infections are a thing, and they may be more common in prostitutes (I don't really know), the risk is generally very low precisely because urine is the byproduct of very specific filtration by the kidneys. Honestly, you're probably safer getting peed on than just about anything else the prostitute would do with you.

    That's the real "hoot" about our species. You name some crazy fucked-up thing and somebody somewhere is doing it. Likely a lot of somebodies. I'm not a prude or anything. I think consenting adults should do whatever the fuck they want. I just don't understand the appeal of a lot of things.

    Me neither. Even if I could get behind the whole "sharing bodily fluids" thing, the smell of urine is enough of a turn-off for me to enjoy it. Maybe it also ties into the whole intimacy of watching someone you find attractive doing something "dirty" or something for which you normally can't be witness to? Regardless, yea, it doesn't add up to me. But if you really think about it, everything about specific attempts to impregnate are a "hoot" of sodomy. It's all carnal love of the flesh. Put in that context, it's easier to see why people develop fetishes even if most of my list of "fetishes" are considered normal.

  7. China will fall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The empowers power grab will not help the party in the long term. Having term limits for the communist party leader was the smartest thing the party did. It looked less like a dictatorship and more like a party of the people. Everybody gets sick of the guy in charge after 6 - 10 years in power.

  8. China also "lifted" (choplifted) part of my ideas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China used an idea I implemented before 'em http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/boffins_supercharge_the_hosts_file_to_save_users_plagued_by_dns_outages/ & "IMITATION's SINCEREST form of FLATTERY" + industrial/military espionage vs. the USA!

    * As DNS has more security issues lately https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/google-roku-sonos-to-fix-dns-rebinding-attack-vector/

    APK

    P.S.=> MORE speed/security/reliability/anonymity & natively + LESS resource use or complexity leading to exploit (doing more vs. ANY 1 "so-called" buggy security issue laden (DNS/AntiVir) inefficient/crippled (addons 'souled-out' to advertisers to NOT do the 1 job they have) inferior (firewall filter driver overhead & most work on IP& most threats use hostnames) SLOWER (ALL vs. hosts speedup 2 ways in adblocking + hardcoded favs & avoids DNS tracking too) "so-called 'competitor'")= APK Hosts File Engine https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12252144&cid=56816690/

  9. Re: China also "lifted" (choplifted) part of my id by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your claim that China has copied your work has been thoroughly debunked elsewhere. Your post is a spam post for the purpose of advertising your software. In other articles, you have repeatedly reposted your spam when your posts get moderated to -1. You are engaging in multiple forms of abuse. Your claims that users who criticize you are stalking you is absurd and has no basis in reality. Your spam is not welcome on Slashdot. The testimonials you post when your software is criticized are snippets taken out of context from larger comments. The evidence to support that your testimonials are taken out of context has been posted many times. Your behavior is not welcome on Slashdot. Either act like a decent human being or leave.

  10. This is a no brainer by Snotnose · · Score: 1

    Wanna go to China? Don't care about the censorship? Have fun.

    Wanna go to China and you're concerned about censorship? Oh, hey, this place I wanna go to lets me access CNN and FB, let's go!. How about "fuck no, you're giving money to a totalitarian government that is trying to get money from you".

    1. Re:This is a no brainer by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      I'm glad you get to make such a clear-cut and principled choice.

      Some of us have family there, and some of the older members are simply not up to travelling overseas.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  11. 2+2 Cuts Both Ways, Ya' Know by buravirgil · · Score: 1

    If You Had Behaved Nicely The Communists Wouldn't Exist
    ~ Jenny Holzer, Survivor Series
    Abuse of Power Comes As No Surprise
    ~ Ibid.

    Censorship is not the only narrative. China has never conducted a foreign war. Its border disputes are complex and its civil wars overwhelm western approximations or experience, but all my life the propaganda-driven mythos of 5 Chinese Brothers has dominated western narratives. All my life the warning is: China is about to lash out as it spirals into chaos and strike by some vague mechanism never revealed.

    Assertions about distinctions of freedom, scrutiny, liberty, and "peace" find iconographic anchors and argument long anemic and recycled-- especially Tiananmen Square-- a tragedy by all accounts and without relevance. Had Chinese leaders allowed western corporations to "collect data" about its citizens and "know" more than the government itself about its consumer trends, desires, habits, fears, and proclivities, it would have been treason. Western interests would have had unprecedented and unmeasured advantages in banking, shipping, commodities, and currency exchange markets. Western and European corporations might have sought to choke the nation entire because it would have been plausible.

    Dissonance on the topic is stark and nearly ubiquitous: As Americans learn how their own enterprises cannot be trusted as they compete for dominance and all of Google rests on the promises of anonymous collection, the NSA, CIA, and FBI have all acquiesced to contractors and admitted, if only representationally, what corporations CAN know about any individual dwarfs the methods and and resources once the monopoly of the US government.

    What China has historically experienced is reeling from unexpected invasion, and the meddling of foreign powers with its neighbors. China has always been forced to protect itself. Yet most western narratives assert China's now plus billion people are "trapped" and its actions aim to accrue some capital to be an aggressor all while the US places military bases everywhere else around the world. South China Sea? How is China's military or trade strategies in waters so close to its borders even a topic? Because most discussions about China by so-called educated people resemble the boasts and assertions of teenagers at play with a game of Risk.

    Maintaining global balances of trade is how the US insinuates itself into far off lands and some of it is reasonable. I'm no apologist for criticism of central planning politics and its inevitable corruption, but the "drums" of western dialogues on the topic are exhausting and puerile.

    --
    Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
    1. Re:2+2 Cuts Both Ways, Ya' Know by aberglas · · Score: 1

      Go read Document 9.

      The west and China are not just two different competing empires. One values democracy, free press, civil society. The other is a repressive dictatorship.

      The trouble with repressive dictatorships is that when they go off the rails there is no peaceful way to change their leaders. Western democracy is not perfect, but bad leaders go, and are limited. Imagine if Trump ran China, without any of our checks and balances. Xi does run China and wants to make China great again.

      That is what is different and concerning.

    2. Re:2+2 Cuts Both Ways, Ya' Know by buravirgil · · Score: 1

      Go read Document 9.

      Reading: What Other People Should Do

      Calling either the US or China empires is what Little Big Boys Who Confuse What They See On the tee-vee News with the Game of Risk, and/or Thrones. There's a map somewhere in your realm of confusion. You might read it to see how China is designated a republic, qualified as socialist, while the United States is a democratic republic. They're both full of people that value what their mommies and daddies, and what their mommies and daddies (and so on) had a long time ago. These same people value what they have right now and what they hope their children, and their children's children (and so son), might have.

      See how that works? Each culture assigning value to what was important, still is important, and might be important? For themselves? Without the need to dismiss whole populations oceans as less enlightened? Less _____ or More _____ of anything so important it necessitates 800 military bases in 70 countries?

      --
      Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
    3. Re:2+2 Cuts Both Ways, Ya' Know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your view of China seems to be very selective. Even in the short history of communist China, it has definitely waged foreign wars (maybe you forgot who Korea and Vietnam. The USA wasnt't the only foreign power present).

      Tiananmen was not simply a tragedy, that sounds ike it couldn't have been avoided. It was the repressive, totalitarian action of a brutal dictatorship. Since that is what brutal dicatorships do. There has been no recognition, no apology, since that is what would happen eventually in a functioning democracy or any system beholden to international scrutiny. China literally kills political opponents or people who seem to be agents of change by the thousands. I will just mention the Falun Gong as one example.

      Justifying murder and repression and culling of free speech and dissent with how corporations are out for money isn't really convincing either. Google is not forbidden because of targeted advertising or because it wants to show you exactly the cat pictures you want. it is banned because it allowed dissent.

      China does not protect itself. The ruling elite protects the ruling elite. True enough, they probably tell themselves that is best for China, just like Erdogan and Putin. And since the economy works fine people mostly play along. They don't get to form unbiased opinions about democrazy anyway and are routinely shown what happens to people who speak out in uncomfortable ways.

      And the South China Sea is no local, domestic backwater. It is one of the arteries of global trade AND is situated right between half a dozen other countries that (if anybody) would seem to have a much better claim to the territory. But China just builds military bases against international law anyway (that would seem to not be in dispute. China just says -more or less- that they don't care. Bit of a US-perspective, only even more thinly veiled).

      The Baltic Sea is also close to Germany, but I think people would object if Merkel claimed the area for "historical reasons mumble mumble something old maps".

      So no, this is not jsut run of the mill corruption, it is a murderous dictatorship and we should never forget that. It is not the only one, the the one with the biggest global impact at the moment. Just because others do bad things, too, doesn't mean they get a pass.

      All in all, I would say in ommitting or downplaying everything bad in the country, you sure seem to be an apologist.

  12. Who did it 1st: ME or China? Me... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & go cry in your ramen noodle soup President Zhi, ok? You'll always have to look to the west (the best) & folks like ME for ideas!

    * GOD BLESS AMERICA!

    APK

    P.S.=> ... & LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC! apk

    1. Re: Who did it 1st: ME or China? Me... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's little similarity between what you did and what China did. This has been thoroughly addressed already by other users. I'm an ordinary Slashdot user and, like many other people here, I don't want your spam comments.

  13. Censorship (protectionism) is GOOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Having lived in China gave me a different perspective, blocking American trash is a good thing.

    Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Instagram, and WhatsApp are all cancer ... with AIDS.
    Who wouldn't want to block cancer-AIDS from their country? Of course if you're addicted to cancer-AIDS you're going to be outraged at the idea of blocking it, but life is just better without.
    Americans are just upset that they can't export their cancer-AIDS to every country in the world, but it's nice to live in a country that has the power to tell them to fuck off.
    I wish the UK was powerful enough to block all that shit, but alas it is a mere lapdog.

    1. Re:Censorship (protectionism) is GOOD by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      I also get along fine without most of that stuff when I'm in China. I've still not found a good substitute for Google Translate's character recognition, though. Fortunately, I now know enough of them that I can usually find my way around without much trouble.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  14. Don't do it China! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You were right all along. These sites are just arms of the US intelligence agencies. They even admit it. Keep blocking them and make the tourists learn the hard way.

    1. Re:Don't do it China! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy shit this! Google is just a CIA front, with a gay fruit logo to lure nerds. All of the In-Q-Tel companies are.
      National sovereignty demands these sites remain blocked.

    2. Re:Don't do it China! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      ^Look and learn, kids: This is what happens when you hold your copypasta wrong.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  15. Correct! I do MORE & better by far... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not only what China copied from me in hardcode favs folks spend most time online @ speeding up resolution FASTER vs. remote or local BUGGY security issue laden DNS but it also keeps you off their TRACKING LOGS (+ avoiding it being down) & they don't BLOCK MALWARE/THREATS as I do either!

    No hosts program of MANY that popped up AFTER mine on Windows do any of the above OR check for valid tld/gtld as I do & they're single platform junk!

    NEITHER do any "script kiddie 'scryptz'" written by WANNABES that call themselves "SysAdmins" (who depend on guys like ME to write programs they merely stitch together into "scriptkiddie" scripts)!

    They're all INFERIOR like you.

    * ONLY thing that's been addressed is my kicking your UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous STALKER ASS (you fear me so much you do that & EVERYONE sees it)!

    APK

    P.S.=> WANT? Who CARES what "you want"! You WANT to be ME (w/ all the times you've impersonated me here on /. proving it)... apk

    1. Re: Correct! I do MORE & better by far... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's pick apart your claims. If I am anonymous and unidentifiable, as you say, then how are you able to claim that I've stalked or impersonated you? The very nature of anonymous posting is that anyone who doesn't have administrator rights or access to server logs cannot track who is posting each comment. Therefore, you cannot possibly know anything about whether I have or have not made previous replies to your posts.

      Also, your hosts file engine doesn't block malware or threats. It may interfere with the operation of some malware, but that's not the same as detecting and blocking threats. You are once again overstating the capabilities of your software. It's irresponsible of any security professional to overstate the capabilities of their software. It's deceptive to users and can leave them believing they have protection when they really don't.

      As for your claims about China copying your work, the only similarity is that both use host files. That's where the similarity begins and ends. Other users have pointed this out elsewhere, yet you keep repeating this demonstrably incorrect claim. When you repeat the same false statement, it is not stalking to point out again that the statement is false. If you don't like people saying your statements are false, don't make false statements. This isn't hard.

      I'm going to start using the scale from Politifact's Truth-O-Meter to rate your posts. You've made numerous demonstrably false and absurd claims despite them already having been repeatedly disproved. Therefore, I rate your post Pants On Fire.

  16. Re: China also "lifted" (choplifted) part of my id by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    APK tacitly admits to being an offtopic spammer: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12256612&cid=56823674

  17. Trying a change in one province first by spth · · Score: 1

    Modern China has a tradition of trying major policy or law changes in one province first (and then, if it goes well possibly extend them to the whole country a few years later).

    It makes sense to me: we often have politicians and people in countries debating about the possible impact of some far-reaching legislative or policy changes (and often the discussion mostly ignores precedent from other countries where available). But actually trying it on a limited scale gives some useful data

  18. Hosts block threats unquestionably... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If 0.0.0.0 badsitetoblock.com is in hosts & I'm not infected by it yet, it can't touch me (as I can't touch it) & IF I was & that got put in (as in that being a C&C server) hosts as blocked, the botnet could NO LONGER COMMUNICATE with its commander OR send data to it (or get orders) LITERALLY CRIPPLING the bot agent.

    You UNIDENTIFIABLE ANONYMOUS TROLLS THAT STALK ME? You're ALL THE SAME (stupid, as I've just shown you to be easily).

    * QUESTION (again, that you refuse to answer) WHO DID IT 1st? Me, OR China??

    ANSWER = ME of course, again!

    That particular part of what my program does in hosts is ONLY DONE BY MYSELF of all the host programs out there (none do hardcode favs that protect you vs. DNS security issues + tracking AND malware threats (which CHINA DOES NOT DO).

    APK

    P.S.=> Go AWAY you UNIDENTIFIABLE Anonymous STALKER - you've proven you're STUPID.. apk

  19. Thanks UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous stalker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: You just provided proof of you STALKING ME by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts both here & in that link too!

    * Everyone sees you doing it JEALOUS "lil' Jowie" - but you're helping to prove my point on it even more... lol, thanks!

    (Grow up, OR take your medications for your PSYCHOTIC obsession w/ STALKING me online lunatic... ok?)

    APK

    P.S.=> I suppose IF I were a "ne'er-do-well" DO-NOTHING waste of life like yourself I'd be upset but NOT @ those doing well + creating good programs others like & use, e.g. https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12252144&cid=56816704/ as I do & YOU DON'T (You're too unskilled, lazy & stupid to do so evidently) BUT @ YOURSELF (after all, it's nobody's fault BUT YOUR OWN you're a waste of life)... apk

    1. Re: Thanks UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous stalker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are projecting your inadequacies onto me. I'm not jealous of you. I just want you to stop spamming Slashdot.

  20. Make money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hello, start earning by paid surveys.

    http://www.clixsense.com/?8172285

  21. LOL! Fact you said it says otherwise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: On jealousy & I give folks what they like & use here https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12256658&cid=56824676/ do you? How's it feel to want (what you'll never have)? Who CARES what YOU (& "your kind" UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous STALKING ME "ne'er-do-wells") want??

    I don't.

    Especially as "your kind" doesn't give folks what they WANT like & USE as I do, lol...

    APK

    P.S=> The ONLY kind of "people" (using that term loosely since these are the LOWEST of the low) that would give me guff about my work especially are ADVERTISERS & WEBMASTERS - others, as you can see in the link above, LIKE & USE my work

      (See, if you wouldn't have INFECTED, tracked, & slowed us, I'd never have put it out - blame yourself, but you CANNOT stop me (but myself & others LIKE me are stopping you, last I looked 65% losses on ads, lol, per iirc, mediamatters no less))... apk