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Chinese Internet Users Cross 800 Million Mark (scmp.com)

Posted by msmash on from the reaching-new-highs dept.

There are now as many internet users in China as there are people in the United States, Indonesia and Brazil combined. From a report: While two in five Chinese are still offline, the country's internet population has grown big enough to open huge market opportunities for hi-tech companies, and provide the government with better access to keep watch over its citizens, according to an analyst. China surpassed the 800-million mark for the number of internet users for the first time, further cementing its position as home to the world's biggest online community, as the country kept up its investment in infrastructure and pushed to lower access fees. The number of internet users in China rose by 30 million in the first half of this year to 802 million, representing a penetration rate of 57.7 per cent, according to a report by state agency China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) released this week. All but 1.7 per cent of the users access the internet through mobile devices, according to the report.

41 comments

  1. And they don't even move the needle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because the "Chinese Internet" isn't the Internet.

    1. Re:And they don't even move the needle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you mean? The internet companies will gladly censor to whatever the whims suit their insanity. I am seeing less and less a difference between Chinese internet and "free" internet controlled by a small group of companies in one city that collude to censor.

    2. Re: And they don't even move the needle by fubarrr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Best to call it Chinese intranet

    3. Re: And they don't even move the needle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The wokest position is social conservatism and fiscal progressivism.

    4. Re: And they don't even move the needle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have to be careful because a certain political party likes to use buzzwords like 'family values' to infer they have some social conservatism, but it's a sham to dupe good people into voting for them.

      I believe in old fashion principles like being polite, treating each other with respect, not judging a book by its cover, etc. But this isn't really conservatism, it's paleo-liberalism.

      Also it's important to notes that fiscal progressivism (addressing market inequalities to benefit most people) should not be confused with economic liberalism (i.e. Laissez-faire)

    5. Re: And they don't even move the needle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a very interesting development.

      As most people know, the Chinese don't have a real written language. They have a primitive system of hieroglyphics pictographs to represent words, much in the same way the ancient Egyptians did. As you can imagine the typewriters for such a crude language are monsters with thousands of keys. The same with computer keyboards. They can't use normal keyboards but need fat keyboards with hundreds of very small keys, and even then they are required to use complex "compose" operations of pressing multiple keys to generate just one little pictograph. Very inefficient to say the least.

      And then there are the Chinese themselves. Their society is set up like a termite mound or an ant hill. Chinese are not individuals but rather better described as worker ants who all look alike and are indistinguishable from one another. They relinquish all personality and personal rights to the state which essentially owns them. They are regimented into the state approved "intranet". There is no such thing as the Internet in China because Google and other multinationals have created a set of blockers and filters. Whole blocks of normal Internet addresses aren't even routeable in China. Google's censorship software will even report to Chinese authorities any attempts to view forbidden content. The penalty for reading banned content or discussing banned topics is years in a Gulag. Many never return having been worked to death in brutal conditions.

      When we think of China, it is best to think of them as faceless insects, one identical with the next, all doing the will of the socialist party bosses. Termites and ants that try to stand out will be squashed. So you have a billion little insects tapping away on their monster keyboards generating pictographs which no one will ever read. Be warned. This is the future the socialists have planned for America. The State is all. The individual is nothing.

  2. Can we goatse them all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    800 million people viewing the gaping anus

  3. All but 1.7 per cent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "All but 1.7 per cent of the users access the internet through mobile devices, according to the report."

    i barely use my phone at all anymore, so this just amazes me. i guess there is the cost and portability factor, for such a low price a smartphone can do quite a lot in these places.

    1. Re:All but 1.7 per cent by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      It could also be tablets. If I can buy an Amazon Fire 7 for only 40 Canadian dollars on Prime day, I don't even want to think about the price of tablets in China.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:All but 1.7 per cent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't use my phone for internet either, but that's anomalous these days. By far the majority of the world has moved to mobile devices as their primary, often even their sole online access.

      This is a problem because phones are centrally controlled devices, allowing further encroachment of freedoms.

    3. Re:All but 1.7 per cent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably the same or more. Amazon doesn't care about losing money on their tablets, or probably loses money on purpose. It is a vehicle for Kindle, Amazon, Amazon Video, Amazon Prime, even Alexa.
      I'm sure there are cheaper tablets but might have a TN screen and not IPS, poor quality, 512MB RAM, sort of almost working properly, flash memory extremely slow on writes stalling everything every couple minutes, almost a fire hazard.. Overall so much crappy than you and I wouldn't want it, and even the Chinese won't want it.

  4. Let me fix that headline... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chinese Intranet Users Cross 800 Million Mark. Youâ(TM)re welcome.

  5. And online freedom was lost. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm old enough to remember when everyone was saying the internet would safeguard freedom all around the world, even in the worst repressive regimes, because "it routes around censorship". It would empower the individual, so went the narrative.

    As we have now seen, the internet is turning into a tool for massive scale repression, censorship, and social manipulation, instead.

    Western companies, they want into that sweet, sweet market of 800M, and other big markets where you either play the repression game with the government, or you don't get to taste the pie. Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Cisco, others, they will ask "how high" when China says Jump.

    Someone always tries to point out how the most technically literate can find a way around, and that is so, but it is of no import. All the Chinese govt, or any other govt for that matter, cares is that the 99% will be under their thumb. "Social Order" will be maintained, defined as them staying in power. Defined as the people not being able to search for terms deemed to cause "social unrest". Not being allowed to even read Orwell because that might give them ideas. Cute dancing babies? Sure, you can see those.

    Some battles are being won, but more are being lost. The internet is steadily eroding into a tool of mass social control, aided by western companies wanting more profits.

    The war is lost. The only hope is to start anew, and this time not make the same mistakes.

    1. Re:And online freedom was lost. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problems I've had lately from about this year aren't even about China, country of the week, censorship or government overreach.
      More and more sites mostly US and global ones simply block me on their end. Forbes, Fox News, etc. - CNN appears to work. Some crappy UK newspaper is blocked, random US sites and e.g Asus or even today, Nvidia. This is all because I'm using tor browser but god forbid I read an article or download a driver without identifying myself.
      I'm served 403 and error pages. Bloomberg took the cake by serving me "TERMS OF SERVICE VIOLATION" (the TOS are an amazing exercise in comprehensive "you can do nothing, we can do everything" language and also seems to say accessing the site is an international crime if you do from Cuba, Sudan, Syria, Iran, North Korea)

      According to my exclusive sources... slashdot comments I read years ago, some web or network admins ban entire Chinese and Russian IP ranges to make their jobs easier. I probably can't fault them very much but I'm seeing what happens when the end point is locking itself up. Who needs evil networks and evil censorship then!

    2. Re:And online freedom was lost. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes that is becoming an issue too.

      The only way to combat it is to get the average person to use Tor for looking up cookie recipes and whatever else they do. It has to be normalized. As long as it remains the domain of the "seedy underbelly" of the internet it will be closed off from more and more of the web.

  6. And that half billion of them are buttfuck poor by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

    China is a nation of 300 million (USA sized) people attached at the hip to 1,000 million poor third world backwards peasants. To get a handle on this, imagine that tomorrow morning every US citizen woke up with 3 clones beside him. Obviously your reaction would be, "get the hell out of my house, you deplorables!" after which the clones would be on their own with no safety net, no welfare or medicare, and the US government would not allow them to stay in the civilized cities, banishing them to the rural areas (hukou system).

    That's basically the situation in China. So these 800 million users are 300 million normal people plus 500 million morons from flyover territory. Needless to say they have little to offer besides cheap labor for the benefit of the capitalists on the coasts. Kind of a metaphor for our own situation in America, eh?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re:And that half billion of them are buttfuck poor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy shit, dude. Superior much?

  7. Someday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And maybe someday they'll all join our international community. We probably just have to start using Lojban to avoid the "in the communist China" errors in communication. And stop gaping our favourite sexual pleasure providing body parts to protect the innocent.

  8. Re: And that half billion of them are buttfuck poo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The math tells me that the United States is fucked.

    Let's assume China doesn't improve it's Rights of Man and individual liberty, but doesn't regress either. With it's current proto-capitalist model and better automation, we are fucked.

    If it ever fully embraces the notion of a free society, we are simply fucked faster.

  9. Isn't it required now if you're in China? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Doesn't the commnunist Chinese government require everyone to use the (Chinese version of the) Internet now, so they can keep track of your loyalty to the Party, make sure you're not a dissident, and otherwise are staying lockstepped with their strict 'guidelines' of behavior? Don't they penalize you somehow if you don't use it enough, because it doesn't give their tracking enough data to work with, like you've got something to hide? Maybe they arrest you if you don't post on their version of social media? Also it seems that Zuckerbook is taking ideas from China now.

    1. Re:Isn't it required now if you're in China? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Because having richer customers to sell to and better products to buy is somehow bad for the USA? Because not being able to start wars around the world on a whim is somehow bad for the USA? China's neighbors have some reasons to worry, but the USA can only benefit from China's development.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    2. Re:Isn't it required now if you're in China? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      So you think a totalitarian communist State with no belief in civil rights, freedom of speech and expresison, or much belief in basic human rights, is better than a Democratic Republic?

  10. China's internet got BETTER: How/Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A technique in APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux & BSD h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r L i n u x . z i p

    Yields more security/speed/reliability/anonymity vs. any 1 solution (99% of threats use hostnames vs. IP address most firewalls use) more efficiently/FASTER + NATIVELY 4 less!

    Vs. "Bolt on 'MoAr' illogic-logic" slowing you hosts speed u up 2 ways: Adblocks + Hardcode fav. sites u spend most time @ vs. competition loaded w/ security bugs (DNS/AntiVir) + overheads slowing u (messagepass 'souled-out' to advertisers easily detected & blocked addons + firewall filtering drivers) & their complexity leads to exploitation!

    * ONLY 1 of its kind in GUI 4 Linux/BSD!

    (Better vs. Windows model in speed/efficiency/merge)

    APK

    P.S.=> See subject: China copied a feature only MY hosts program does http://theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/boffins_supercharge_the_hosts_file_to_save_users_plagued_by_dns_outages/

  11. 30++ reviews by registered /.ers... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & these links on the quality + efficacy of my hosts engine https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57130680/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137806/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137868/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137916/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137944/

    * Plus 100,000++ users of my program worldwide for a faster/safer/more reliable & anonymous online experience.

    APK

    P.S.=> & as the saying goes per my parent post? 1.42 billion Chinese CAN'T BE WRONG (except for their choice of gov't. that is)... apk

  12. Correction: "Intranet" not "Internet" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let us be honest. The Chinese are not really connected to the free internet as we know it. Most of the outside world is blocked. Sadly, the government brainwashing and propaganda work so well, most of them don't even realize what is happening.

  13. "Internet" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *Dr. Evil quotes*

  14. is it really 'the internet'... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    when they're cut-off from much of it? it's more like 800 million chinese INTRAnet users with partial, and censored, global INTERnet access-the accessibility of which is at the whim of their government.

  15. 800 Million Users by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 3, Funny

    800 Million Users; only one political opinion allowed.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    1. Re:800 Million Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but many different aimbots!

  16. How Would You Know??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Talk, talk, talk.
    And you still can't read Chinese.
    But of course, that's no barrier to understanding China and its people.

    1. Re:How Would You Know??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you ever need to?

  17. APK lies again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    APK lies again.
    Like how he frequently repeatedly claims the Chinese copied him but can't produce any evidence. There he admitted that there is not evidence to support the claim but here it is being repeated yet again.
    How about when he states that hosts does port filtering but again can't backup his statement which was shown to be false.
    There is also the list of "experts" who support him but it turns out they don't say what he is claiming.
    This ignores the out of context quotes he uses to lie by omission.
    The problem with APK is that his entire reputation is built upon the lie he told years ago that hosts is an effective security solution. It has been exposed numerous times as being a lie and when exposed APK fails to argue logically and instead will try to deflect criticism, change the subject, move the goal posts, return to a previously disproven statement, demand you prove you did better than his file concatenator, or just call people names. He will continue to lie by stating that he won or "dusted" you while failing to refute anything you said, will never provide real evidence, and generally try to dodge the issue.

    Face it APK is one of the most detested individuals here for good reason. When ever his poor behavior, awful logic, over statements, and horrendous writing are called out he has a fit and has done so for years across the internet. He is a spammer, and is an abusive insecure little man who is washed up and never amounted to anything. Until he produces actual verifiable facts supporting his case nothing he says should be taken seriously.

  18. Who did it 1st: China or me? I did... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who did it 1st: China or me? I did - dates are my proof w/ the FACT China rampantly STEALS U.S. Intellectual properties & military secrets!

    It was also a PLEASURE BLOWING YOU AWAY today both here https://news.slashdot.org/comm... & here too https://news.slashdot.org/comm...

    Point by "so-called 'point' LIES" of yours, easily as always vs. "your kind" (LOWEST of the LOW Antifa UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous losers that STALK me OR also IMPERSONATE me on /.).

    APK

    P.S.=> TONS of security experts KNOW blacklists work (no questions asked) & 3 things show I do it right:

    1st = User praise my hosts engine https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...

    2nd "ATTACKS" I GET (from UNIDENTIFIABLE ac as Elon Musk got https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... )

    3rd BEING IMITATED = "Imitation = sincerest form of flattery" https://linux.slashdot.org/com... JUST LIKE CHINA DID ME TOO... apk

  19. I am APK the LORD of HOSTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am APK the great "LORD of HOSTS", a.k.a. AlecStaar from ArsTechnica or Alexander Peter Kowalski.

    See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux h t t p : / / I . a m . a . f u c k i n g / a s s h o l e . r e t a r d . z i p (remove spaces between characters & download).

    I am the godlike creator of various GUI front-ends for other people's configuration files.

    Watch as I claim I win every argument when in reality I know I lost but that won't stop me from proclaiming my victory.

    When presented with facts I rebut them with wild speculations, false support, and out of context quotes

    All of my accomplishments revolve around me being proven to be an annoying spamming asshole

    See me be proud of my inability to be a functional adult

    Bask in my debilitating mental illness

    Hear me tell stories about me living large drinking miller lite in my ramshackle duplex with a roommate at age 54.

    Watch me spew some word salad because I can't string 2 words together in a coherent manner.

    I just don't understand why every site I post on everyone makes fun of me, it can't be because I am a shit stick but instead because they are all Ne'er-do-well SOYboy Jealous JOWIEs.

    Witness my descent into madness

    APK

  20. Cross the mark by PPH · · Score: 1

    Going which way?

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  21. No, you're not I but... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: I don't know WHO you are UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous troll but I know WHAT you are - a psycho loon STALKING me OR even IMPERSONATING me & failing your "poor imitation" proving you WISH you were me (but you & "your kind"? Mere DO-NOTHING "ne'er-do-well" PUSSCAKE snowflakes?? You can't EVER be - your type is a "NOTMAN" loser).

    * GROW UP & GET ON TOPIC freak.

    APK

    P.S.=> Do you want to know WHY you're such a fail (proof was here https://news.slashdot.org/comm... & here today too https://news.slashdot.org/comm... vs. me in you FAILING, lol)? You waste time in that WASTED LIFE of yours by STALKING me OR IMPERSONATING me fool... apk

  22. Yet another Chinese lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China tells so much lies that it has become allergic to truth

    The '800 million users' claim is yet another Chinese exaggeration - they have no '800 million users', they have a total of 8 users