45 ms·

China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

345 points by molecule 10y ago

bsder 10y ago
I would argue that even without the Great Firewall, China starts isolated by the fact that its language isn't really shared by anybody else.
- tellarin 10y ago
  Nitpicking, but Mandarin Chinese is one of the official languages in Singapore (with English, Tamil, and Malay). Also, there is an immense Chinese diaspora throughout the world (especially in neighbouring countries), of which many became multilingual and have access to other media and can still communicate back.
- paradite 10y ago
  So is every single language on plant earth: http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/World-Languages.jpg http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/World-Languages.jpg
kitchi 10y ago
> VPN Software is pretty simple Can someone explain why VPNs are "simple"? What do they mean by simple?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- unlinker 10y ago
  They mean easy to detect and disconnect.
kitchi 10y ago
> VPN software is simple Can someone explain why VPN software is "simple"? I thought it encrypted your data so they cannot be inspected, plus if you tunnel over the HTTP/HTTPS ports how can VPN traffic be separated out from "regular" traffic?
- fiveyearsinarow 10y ago
  Because to establish the tunnel, you need to send some "handshake" packets to the server. Those packets are not encrypted and can be easily identified and dropped.
  - netheril96 10y ago
    Which is why `shadowsocks` has become popular to bypass the GFW: it has no such handshake phase and hence cannot be easily identified.
    - fiveyearsinarow 10y ago
      ...and when GFW has trouble stopping `shadowsocks`, it threatens the author of the software. GFW is not only the technology, which is easy to bypass, but also the system that average citizen cannot escape.
- wsuskc 10y ago
  >if you tunnel over the HTTP/HTTPS ports how can VPN traffic be separated out from "regular" traffic? it can't. that's why openvpn doesn't work in China but openvpn tunneled over stunnel (TLS proxy for arbitrary TCP streams) does.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
windmaple 10y ago
Does it?
- slezyr 10y ago
  You can try to as them about tank man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
  - netheril96 10y ago
    The 1989 incident is not secret here in China. Almost everyone I have come contact with know it, and most of them do not know how to bypass the GFW. But of course you cannot talk about it in the public.
  - paradite 10y ago
    I, as well as my parents, my grandparents, and many other Chinese, know about the incident, but we do not necessarily agree with the Western media's opinions on it. After all, our parents were the ones that witnessed it, and they should have a better understanding of what really happened. You can read this article by Western media to get a different perspective: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-leader-talks-to-60-minutes/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-leader-talks-to-60-minute...
    - pessimizer 10y ago
      I'm pretty sure that all but a very few of them watched it on TV just like everyone else did. Well, not exactly like everyone else did - a lot later, a lot shorter, and edited and presented by the tank. edit: I'm overestimating Chinese media freedom here. Furtive word of mouth and descriptions from people who have travelled outside of China are probably a more accurate way that Chinese people have learned about this facet of their own history - am I right?
      - paradite 10y ago
        You are right. It's good to get opinions from people who are living abroad. But I would be cautious over the recounts of the "Chinese dissidents" who are expelled or fled from China. They are more likely to be motivated to give a biased recount against the government as a way of expressing their resentment with the government. They also often have supports from people/organizations who are eager to find ways to paint Chinese government black (for whatever reason they might have). (Think the situation of Snowden)
mc32 10y ago
Why is it surprising that it works? It comes from strength as well as buy-in. People know its censored, but they accept the bargain. In this case, I think Chinese buying the Han homogeneity helps in that there isn't an us vs them struggle. But rather an us vs the agitators mentality. And being nationalistic [affinity to the homeland] helps. So long as people see the service provided by the government to be worth the deal, they'll put up with it. Just as we make an arguably similar, but obviously different bargain when we put up what some people call security theatre. We "put up with it" so long, in balance the government gives us an acceptable deal. For China, where in a communist country you have daily labor riots or protests against corrupt officials, people buy into the case that with a scandalous press they, the population, by and large, could be worse off due to unrest and instability which could arguably threaten the viability of the CCP as well as the one nation notion.
- nullnullnullnil 10y ago
  FWIW, my personal experience says differently. I recently got back from a few months in China, and while I was there I had a conversation with a young man who was 100% convinced Tiananmen Square was a rumor started by anti government 'bad guys'.
  - narrator 10y ago
    Think of a person of median intelligence. Now realize that half the population is dumber than that guy. That's who propaganda is intended for, not the Hacker News crowd (apologies to anyone on Hacker News with below median intelligence, you're welcome here too :) ). Same thing in China. The people who are easily convinced of things is who the propaganda is intended for and who the government wants to protect from foreign opinion.
    - manmal 10y ago
      Median might be about right - here in Austria we witnessed yesterday that almost 50% of the ppl fell for a rightwing wanna-be dictator running for presidency. And there wasn't even brainwashing involved, apart from ads and word of mouth.
fpoling 10y ago
It may work now, but I suspect in the longer term it could be very harmful. As with stocks, it is like getting short-term calmness for the price of blowing up in the future. Noise of internet freedom train society deal with rumors etc., that may be essential for survival.
chillacy 10y ago
> China has achieved this. It can communicate with the outside world, meanwhile Western opinion cannot easily penetrate as ideological tools Media is powerful. And even in the US, most of us self-censor our news (liberal vs conservative media) to the point where we're largely reading only views we agree on (HN is no different in that regard). I always find it amusing that we can all read the same news with different conclusions and come out thinking that we're right all the time. A lot of people assume that people in China are unaffected by all the censorship, but even if they're aware of it, I wonder if censorship in China actually reduces cognitive dissonance at this point, and it's actually more agreeable to read censored news than not. Much like advertising or the opinions of our friends/family, ideas can be subtle but extremely influencing.
- jgreen10 10y ago
  When I'm in Russia, I find the state-controlled media surprisingly critical of government policy and very outward looking. They are clearly ignoring the elephant in the room: the country being an ungovernable pool of corruption that can only be kept together by instilling nationalism and foreign threats and an authoritarian leader, but then again, it's not like US media are really asking critical questions. With or without free press, no one wants to hear that they're in a mess. It's much nicer to think that everything is good, but the evil-doers are trying to ruin it.
  - argonaut 10y ago
    The US media as a whole may not be asking critical questions, but that's not the point of free press. The fact is that the US media is free to ask critical questions, and therefore some, though not all, of the media ask critical questions. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
    - chrischen 10y ago
      Free to still allows another way to allow the powerful to control and manipulate. In order to truly be a free system the system has to be fair as well, which means more income equality in addition to a free press system. If money controls the "free" press and money distribution is heavily skewed, then it's not really a free press. This is how the US system works.
IIAOPSW 10y ago
The Chinese own China and can decide for themselves what is best for their country. But as an American living in China, I fear that some of what I see here can and will happen in America one day.
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  Sure; but you're not making a moral argument here right? That is, they can decide, but it's still objectively wrong.
  - IIAOPSW 10y ago
    I am a guest in this country. Irrespective of what I believe is right or unalienable it is not my place to insert myself into their politics.
    - duncan_bayne 10y ago
      Ever? I'm hesitant to invoke Godwin here, but do you agree that at least in boundary cases, it's morally permissible to directly force a change in the internal politics of another country?
      - ralusek 10y ago
        Why would morals respect national borders?
      - dragontamer 10y ago
        If he's an American citizen, then he should just leave if things become really bad.
    - babuskov 10y ago
      Wow. I wish if more Americans would think like that.
- hamstergene 10y ago
  If you're locked in a kitchen, even though there is more than one choice of food are you free to decide what to eat? What if you was born there and don't really know all variety options you could have? Centralized propaganda makes "freedom of choice" very controversial topic. Especially when its source has all the power to censor and prosecute.
vonklaus 10y ago
The thing is, information is the weapon of the 21st century. We are already litigating the cold war in the 3 most popular courts: the olympics, the media, and financial markets. We cooperate with China, but what will become obvious if a horrifying 1984 censorship scenario evolves more forecfully is that nations and powerbrokers have different information thay want buried/codified. So while China censors it's internet, there will be many places that actively promote (or at best do not dissuade) the content that China is burying. Just as Russia publishes content the U.S. would prefer not to be published/ is critical of America. So Censorship does work as does fearmongering and threats of violence. However, even in China's situation (which is horrifying) where you can be killed for promoting information/speaking out about some things there will always be groups outside the region with the information and as it becomes scarce it becomes more powerful. Peacekeepers, activists, anti-chinese nationals and subversive governement agents all have incentive to work against chinese censorship, so censorship as a whole can not be successful hopefully as there will always be factions and these factions will gain the highest leverage disseminating the information that is the most policed and downright censored shit in their counterparties region.
zhte415 10y ago
China's firewall is largely constructed to create technology transfer towards China. This may be in the form of hindering sales for comapanies they may have interesting opportunities for investment, from sports shoes to embedded microchips, to financial products. It is also part of a much greater Golden Shield network. But a lot has changed over the past 5 years. A contrast of goals/objectives: the Golden Shield formerly largely about public security and media control, a network prided under the former premier (national harmony being the end-game), but now goals are much, much, more nationalistic at a strategic level across China.
- eob 10y ago
  > China's firewall is largely constructed to create technology transfer towards China. That's been a huge effect of the GFW, but is there material indicating it was the original purpose? My understanding was that much of the explosion in Chinese censorship tech happened as a way to prevent social media from gaining control over the news cycle. (i.e., when a train wreck occurs, the Party prefers stick-to-the-facts news coverage over whose-to-blame social media mobs)
  - zhte415 10y ago
    Original purpose? Multifaceted, but certainly not just internet focused, it was a part of a much bigger thing (Golden Shield) that involves submitting photocopies of IDs to get a mobile phone SIM to an urban alley-way with CCTV and a cartoon of a friendly cop pasted on the wall. >when a train wreck occurs, the Party prefers stick-to-the-facts news coverage over whose-to-blame social media mobs combating whose-to-blame scaremongering isn't in the GFW's scope, as in regarding blocking foreign access, but is in the grey area with the rest of Golden Shield, such as requiring ICP licences in order to host a website. Today, however, Golden Shield is pretty mature, high-speed train-wrecks being covered by diggers is generally accepted as not OK, and most of the action happens on WeChat anyway with gov't ID papers issued to get a SIM, therefore a number, therefore a WeChat account. A huge amount of fraud happens on WeChat, despite these paperwork needs.
    - 10y ago
comex 10y ago
So what about Tor and obfsproxy? Does it actually (still) work? If so, why don't more people use it?; if not, why not? I can't easily find up-to-date information about this through Google - which I find odd, since China is such an important use case for Tor that I would expect them to maintain some sort of status page. Maybe the information is more readily available in Chinese...
- nullnullnullnil 10y ago
  I just got back from a few months in China. These services are definitely blocked through DPI. It's frustrating. It's also interesting what happens to your mind when you can't read what you'd like to, talk about what you'd like to, and revert the accepted status quo for everything.
  - 13of40 10y ago
    While you were there, did you get a feel for whether people there would pay for a semi-reliable bridge through the firewall?
    - nbevans 10y ago
      "Will they pay for freedom"? Seriously?
      - GantzGraf 10y ago
        I thought it was a good question. "Do people in China in general care enough about censorship to pay for access to uncensored internet?" doesn't have an explicitly obvious answer, does it? They could be happy with their internet as is. They could be unhappy and willing to pay. They could be unhappy but unwilling/unable to pay.
      - 13of40 10y ago
        I think there's a parallel here with how the FCC tries to censor certain words and images, but you can pay a premium to get them via non-public, historically illegal [1], means. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1468 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1468
eva1984 10y ago
Not surprising. And I doubt other country can do the same. Several factors makes China a unique case: 1. Massive domestic market, China along can have its own internet ecosystem, which is the fundamental reason why GFW can endure. 2.Conformist culture due to its Confucian tradition 3.Communist government has firm grasp of its power and stay vigilant to any sign or power that acts against it.
- usrusr 10y ago
  #1 trumps everything else. Try doing the same in a market the size of a typical European nation and you end up with an embarrassing digital backwater. Do it in a market the size of China and you can trail silicon valley by a few years at most, constantly gaining relative competitiveness as the global market of "online stuff" slows from wild, exiting exploration to establishment. I suspect that #2 and #3 are far behind what I would put on #2, plain old language barrier, but I am surely no China expert.
narrator 10y ago
There would not be a hundred billion dollar ad industry if propaganda didn't work. We wouldn't run multi-million dollar presidential campaigns if propaganda didn't work. The whole field of social psychology and public relations would be a useless exercise if propaganda didn't work. This is the fundamental problem with democracy: people are easily influenced. The antecedents of the current Chinese communist party, the Bolsheviks knew this and they decided that the inner party must be the vanguard of the proletariat in order to prevent the proletariat from being easily led astray by the faith of the masses in the monarchs. Of course, they were wrong, for different reasons, but objective truth is a hard thing and often a weak voice amid the bullhorns blasting propaganda. Anyone interested in this topic should watch the great documentary "The Century Of The Self"[1] that goes into the history of the public relations industry and mass persuasion in general. [1] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2d29tf_the-century-of-the-self-part-1-of-4-happiness-machines_school http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2d29tf_the-century-of-the-...
- unexistance 10y ago
  even the wiki entry on Edward Bernays is very interesting :D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
- studentrob 10y ago
  > This is the fundamental problem with democracy: people are easily influenced That's not a problem with democracy. It's how people learn. We learn something and form an opinion about it. The problem comes when only certain media sources are allowed. In that case, it's harder for people to discuss alternate viewpoints
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    No, the problem isn't when only certain media sources are allowed - honestly, the problem is when any media sources are allowed at all. Frankly, I think Amercians are as deceived by propaganda as the Chinese. Did we somehow forget in this thread that in western press, one can rarely find an article that isn't full of bullshit? Even if the reasons differ (western media do this for profit), the end result is the same.
dasil003 10y ago
I don't subscribe to common western black and white views on US vs Chinese freedom, and in fact I am fairly paranoid about the US government overreach of power, however I don't see that Chinese-style internet censorship has any applicability to the US or European governments. I'm far more concerned about the power exterted by increasingly large corporations who want extract as much rent from the network as possible. I'm also more concerned about covert government surveillance. But in terms of outright censorship, that will just piss off too many people for little gain. There's no competitive advantage to be gained the way there is for China.
- joe_the_user 10y ago
  I don't subscribe to common western black and white views on US vs Chinese freedom It's maybe, black and dark gray. US media and US spin interests can corruptly manipulate a lot. But I don't see how that sort of power makes the blunt repression of China any better.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Anecdote: On Omegle a while ago, I chat with a Chinese girl, all Chinese guys I met there were always anxious about how other people would see their country, so I proceed to explain that I grew up very fond of many things about China, martial arts, silk clothes, temples, food, pictural art, kanjis. The girl listens happily and then tells me 'you know, not everything in China is good, <this> <that> <this> ... ' Then 3 seconds blank. Then 'oh god .. god ... no' then left asking me to forget what she said, that her country is great and she loves it very much. Then quit. I guess she was worried her messages would be logged and have consequences.
  - allemagne 10y ago
    Seems more like you were successfully trolled.
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      Could be, but I spent a huge amount of time on Omegle, stats from 10K conversations, and that kind of troll was almost non existant. American teens trying to spot sex seekers (to leverage in positive or negative ways) = 70% of the users over a 9 month period. The rest were mostly bored cubicle workers. Chinese users had recurrent pattern: struggling to type, low english level, similar center of interests. That girl was very similar (except for the english level). Maybe you're right but it didn't feel like this at the time.
jondubois 10y ago
The Great Firewall actually makes a lot of sense. Everyone thinks of themselves as being rational and unbiased - But in fact, we are all irrational, biased and at times hypocritical. Those people who think that they are rational and objective are usually the least rational and most hypocritical of all because they lack self-awareness. As westerners, as much as we like to pretend that we know the whole truth, in reality, what we know is only a biased approximation of it. The west likes to impose their version of the truth on the whole world but China is determined to stick to their version - I don't see anything wrong with that; especially if it works in their favour. Regardless of how you look at it; the west is aggressive when it comes to spreading its ideals and values. If China wasn't so protecive, they would have become economically dependent on the west (as opposed to being the powerhouse they are today).
- gohrt 10y ago
  Who is "China" who picks "their" version? The Chinese Communist Party, or the Chinese people? How would China become dependent on the West if Chinese people had access to non-CommunityParty ideas?
  - jondubois 10y ago
    Chinese people would be consuming western media through Facebook, Twitter etc... Through this media, they would be shown advertisements for US companies selling US products. Soon enough, Chinese people would no longer be content with Chinese-made goods and services from small Chinese suppliers (e.g. through decentralized marketplaces like Alibaba) - Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketplaces like Amazon and Apple store - Basically the money would leave China and they would all be worse off on average. By keeping western media out, they keep Chinese money in. Don't ignore the fact that media is paid for almost entirely by advertising and that advertising is paid for entirely by companies who need to sell products.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      > Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketplaces like Amazon and Apple store Both totally available in China already via their local forms (store.apple.cn and amazon.cn). My wife orders from Amazon a lot.
xyzzy4 10y ago
That's ironic because the Washington Post is censoring this article from me with their paywall.
litaohackernews 10y ago
Remember Edward Snowden?
schuke 10y ago
Maybe it doesn't work. I've always wondered why, among so many long-ruling authoritarian regimes, China is almost the only one with such strict censorship. Yes there was the Arab Spring but look at Saudi Arabia, Russia, Belarus, Vietnam..., they don't ban Facebook yet the incumbents' rule do not face exceptionally greater challenge than China. Maybe all censorship does is to give the Communist Party is false sense of security. Maybe it's something else that's working and censorship is simply free-riding.
- SXX 10y ago
  China don't have as much natural resources per citizen as Russia, don't have huge totalitarian sponsor next to like Belarus and don't have as much oil as Saudi Arabia. Never did any research on Vietnam so have no idea. Reason why Russia regime still exist without heavy censorship is billions and billions of dollars burn to sustain level of consumption. Russian economy is nothing compared to China, but hey most of people there still able to earn more than average chinese and even more money dumped into Moscow (only city budget is $24B). So in past they just bought votes directly or indirectly instead of enforcing censorship. But since oil prices are low and they run out of money there is more and more censorship appear. For instance more censorship-related laws adopted since 2014 than in 14 years prior that year.
  - tim333 10y ago
    Vietnam has mild censorship - the block the BBC unless you use a VPN - and the government isn't that unpopular with free health and education and 7% growth so they don't have to try that hard. You can still end up fired/imprisoned/deported if you do the wrong thing though.
- studentrob 10y ago
  > Maybe it's something else that's working and censorship is simply free-riding. Yup. I'm sure throwing protesters in prison without trial helps, along with kidnapping Hong Kong booksellers, etc.
- xentronium 10y ago
  Russia doesn't have direct censorship, however all mainstream media is nation-controlled. Also there is an internet censorship registry/banlist that blocks some of the opposition media for "exremism".
venomsnake 10y ago
China is just making real the wet dreams of RIAA and MPAA executives. It is coming in the west too - for copyright, hate speech, terrorism, child porn - the internet will be as tightly locked here too. The fact that so much of it is already a walled garden makes it easier. Remove the web browser from the iDevices and you have a very compelling ecosystem for any dictatorship. It may take 50 years more, but the trends are unmistakable. We need next generation of communication networks. That make laugh of national sovereignty. I think google's project loon and the likes are a good way. Fill a country sky with relaying stations and the government will make itself broke trying to take them down.
peteretep 10y ago
> In April, the U.S. government officially classified > it as a barrier to trade Interested to see what happens if this gets taken up at the WTO.
bad_user 10y ago
Of course it does. I wouldn't bet that it will last though. I often tell people how I was born under communism and that what happened before 1989 in Romania and maybe in other Easter European countries makes the 1984 novel seem unrealistic and boring. We had far worst forms of censorship and propaganda, paranoia about being caught with doublethink by nosy neighbors was at al times high, yet everything looked normal, roses red, sky blue, etc. But the social dissent was there, buried within all layers of society, because you cannot stop thought or even word of mouth. And it didn't happen overnight, it took more than 40 years, but in the end we shot our dictators on Christmas day. Not a smart thing to do, not real justice, but you know, when the revolution came people feared for their lives and in the end the many trump the few, a fact that governments tend to forget. I don't care much about what the Chinese do within their borders. The far more aggravating thing is that we tolerate China, choose to do business with Chinese companies and buy Chinese products. Now that's fucked up, because we are trading our values, for which people freaking died to win, for short term convenience, also sending the message that it's OK as a country to violate basic human rights, as long as you're powerful enough. Money trumps everything, great thing to teach our kinds, kudos folks.
- studentrob 10y ago
  > The far more aggravating thing is that we tolerate China, choose to do business with Chinese companies and buy Chinese products. A lot of people view trade, tourism and internet communications as a means of fostering diplomacy and preventing war. I wouldn't say we have traded our values. Companies with bad work environments overseas aren't immune to negative perceptions from home.
- Kristine1975 10y ago
  >because we are trading our values Just leaving this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...
- justsaysmthng 10y ago
  > The far more aggravating thing is that we tolerate China, choose to do business with Chinese companies and buy Chinese products. A trade embargo (aka cold war) would be a lot worse for everyone involved.. Leads to arms race and threats of war, even less freedom and more injustice for the people (eg North Korea). > we are trading our values, for which people freaking died to win, for short term convenience .. Yeah, we do that with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq and many more. That's the essence of business - trade one thing for another. We trade our "freedom to do whatever we want" for a salary. We trade our "freedom to party" for the happiness of raising a child... It's one of those laws of life which we might not entirely like, but cannot escape. > people freaking died to win People die - that's the only absolute we can rely on. Don't get carried away with "dying for .. something", most often this is not true - most died because delusional leaders sent them into battle ... only after the fact their death got dressed into "honorable cause".. In the end, the higher morals are dictated by whoever managed to seize power.. Which, by the way brings us back to the censorship thing..
jokoon 10y ago
I don't really know if it's that much worrying. I mean can the entire world really criticize china, when you see so many companies having influence in democratically elected governments? If you look at the political science of it, I think that this firewall is there to mitigate the potential instability of the chinese government. This is not new. I mean I'm okay with critics as long as it aims for progress, but the reality is that you don't just snap your fingers and "tada democracy"! So when you don't have democracy, you will have other ways to have a country that is peaceful and thriving enough. Restricted speech is one of those methods. If you compare the situation in china with the west, it's not so different: there is still some influence between large corporations and government in western countries, and we don't like it either, and free speech doesn't always solve those problems. It's less corrupt, but I think China has really caught up. I would be cautious about putting "free speech" on a pedestal. What works for western countries wouldn't necessarily do for countries which don't have the same customs, history, or culture. Free speech is one of those double edged swords that are well regulated in western countries, but is not in other parts of the world.
- paradite 10y ago
  I agree. But first rule of HN: Do not defend China or you will be down-voted to the bottom.
known 10y ago
Bread and Circuses: bribe the population with free bread and distract them with circuses whilst the rulers do whatever they want.
SFJulie 10y ago
You can censor by scarcity (China) or censor by overabundance of trivia (Western). When Kardashian out weigth cultural news, PR of corps outweigth economical analysis, half baked tutorial replaces consistent tutorial, unproven science replaces science : you drown signal in noise. How many Western citizens have read that the middle eastern wars are mainly about the top 4 weapon dealers (UK, USA, Fr, Russia) bribing locals (see #clintonmails & #panamapapers) in order to ensure the growth of their economy and the disposal of scarce resources (oil, Phosphate, Uranium, Copper, Gold)? How many citizens knows that we are fueling education/health bubbles based on good intentions (NHS) without control (incompetence?) that results in counter productive results? There are 2 ways to censor: cut the access to information (earth friendly solution) or hide the information in a haystack (resulting in 2-3% of global energy burned in spin doctoring).
- Flimm 10y ago
  The Chinese government does censor by overabundance of trivia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party . Do you have evidence that Western governments are doing similar things?
  - Frqy3 10y ago
    Not too hard to find. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...
- flatM 10y ago
  Very spot-on post. I don't have any facts or numbers though. But my gut feelings is that the percentage of people that survive the scarcity (China) or overabundance (West) are comparable.
nihonde 10y ago
It's really odd when my Chinese friends go home and go "dark" on "free world" social media until they return. They usually get emails while in China, though.
crasp 10y ago
So by the looks of the picture halfway down the page the porn filter in the UK has also been removed because they are labeled as 'free'? or is porn not a part of (internet) freedom anymore?
- UVB-76 10y ago
  Apparently there are many shades of 'free' The UK scored 24 out of 100, 0 being the most free.
  - aavotins 10y ago
    With Germany prosecuting people who download torrents, UK banning internet pornography and US manhunt against Edward Snowden and Assange, there is definitely more than one shade of free. The image of freedom is being shaped and tailored for everyone individually, it's a Brave New World out there.
studentrob 10y ago
The metric saying 1/3 of the world faces heavy internet censorship seems large until you remember 1/5 of the world lives in China China is one of two countries that doesn't have access to Facebook and Twitter. The other is Iran. I'm not in love with FB or Twitter, but for tracking censorship, they are a useful measurement.
studentrob 10y ago
This article fails to define what "works" means Does censorship give China a better economy? Does it make people more happy? Safe? Does censorship eradicate certain ideas? Does it prevent people from communicating domestically or internationally? There's no data in the article that suggests any of this is true.
- azernik 10y ago
  It keeps the Party in power. From the second sentence: > preventing information harmful to the Communist Party from entering the country.
  - studentrob 10y ago
    Does it? I'd say that has more to do with throwing protesters in prison for indefinite amounts of time with no trial.
- appleflaxen 10y ago
  Works means "is technically feasible". It doesn't matter if you think it's a good idea or not: the ruling class in China thinks it is. And any government who thinks it's a good idea in the future knows it's technically possible based on China's example.
  - studentrob 10y ago
    Right, all they need to do is convince their population to abandon Facebook and use the government sanctioned social media. I'm sure that will go over well.
    - appleflaxen 10y ago
      Agreed that the public won't abandon facebook. But I don't understand what point you are making.
UVB-76 10y ago
Link to the actual report: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2015 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2015 Let's not kid ourselves, though. The US scored 19 and UK scored 24 (on the scale of 0-100, 0 being most free) Censorship is alive and well in the West.
- okc 10y ago
  The criteria for censorship at the 20 points level - could be debated as - quite healthy criteria. Criteria such as the government controlling online harassment is classed, rightly, as censorship. Political anarchy would be the reflection of 0 point score. Is 0, 10, 20, even 30 or 40 points the optimum score: thats debatable. At the 80+ level, its really not debatable.
smartbit 10y ago
Leiden University is founded in 1575 in The Netherlands, not in Germany
mizchief2 10y ago
Good thing the internet in the US is free and not regulated by the FCC. Oh wait that's right we gave that up so that individual service providers can't make some sites faster than others.
puppetmaster3 10y ago
Here is an example of recent FaceBook censorship: http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8
itsthecourier 10y ago
Been in Beijing last month, the great firewall was an increíble move for local internet companies. Google would had won the battle with Baidu, Facebook and Twitter with Wechat, just to mention a few. Nos, they are so big that when the firewall comes down they will keep running the market
itsthecourier 10y ago
Been in Beijing last month, the great firewall was an increíble move for local internet companies. Google would had won the battle with Baidu, Facebook and Twitter with Wechat, just to mention a few. Nos, they are so big that when the firewall comes down they will keep running the market
jonstokes 10y ago
Broken English, and most of the few comments you have in your profile are pro-China. Hmmmm.....
- flatM 10y ago
  Um, not a native English speaker here. Though as long as I can articulate my thoughts to have a meaningful discussion, I don't think that's being an issue. I would rather you focus on the topic and contribute your thoughts or counter-arguments, than focusing on trivia or throw off 5 cents party stuff to close this fruitful conversation.
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    You can definitely articulate your thoughts enough to have a meaningful discussion, your written English is indistinguishable from college graduate level native written English. I am seriously curious what small hint convinced jonstokes your English was not native, because it was too small for me to catch I guess.
    - jonstokes 10y ago
      I'm an editor, so I have an inordinately fine sense of who makes what kinds of tiny errors.
      - galdosdi 10y ago
        OH. That actually makes sense.
    - flatM 10y ago
      Thanks for the nice words. That's why hackernews is the forum I frequent most, since we can have discussions over almost every imaginable topics in an intelligent and decent manner. Even it is as political and ideological as this one.
  - PeCaN 10y ago
    ...I actually thought you were a native speaker at first. Your English is pretty good and it's easy to understand your thoughts.
jonstokes 10y ago
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" -- John Gilmore. Even back in the slashdot days I always thought this oft-repeated quote was more of a hopeful rallying cry than an actual statement of fact. And I think it's been clear for at least ten years that it's definitely not true.
- tomc1985 10y ago
  I wouldn't say that... but what if you could block all the routes? That appears to be the case here....
snnn 10y ago
They didn't tell you the most dangerous part: The TV box in everyone's home. It is far more powerful than the Great Fire Wall. 1. It's a part of the internet. More than a half internet traffics are video streams. 2. It's a bug 3. It can do End2End monitoring and filtering.
ausjke 10y ago
What a good comparison to Berlin Wall that is. Never thought about it. Whenever I went to China the VPN-fight-with-GFW has always been a nightmare, and my Android phone could not get updated either as google is 100% blocked there. On the other hand, in USA the is near 100% freedom including the internet, but that does have some side effects itself, e.g. nowadays any gender can get into any restroom depends on what he/she feels, that's when I hate "too many freedom", where a few forces their will on the majority public that is normally silent or staying-politically-correct, yes transgender does deserve their rights, but what about the rights for the 99.9% of us that are not transgenders?
- knodi123 10y ago
  > what about the rights for the 99.9% of us that are not transgenders? Well? What about them? What exactly is being done to their rights?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
  Please educate yourself about what being transgender actually means. To give you a rough idea: If you think that people should use the bathroom that matches their birth certificate, you should expect to meet these people in your bathroom (and yes, I am assuming that you are male): http://www.gardenstateequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Andy-file-photo.jpg http://www.gardenstateequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/0... http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/695/cpsprodpb/10BA6/production/_88381586_dsc_0647.jpg http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/695/cpsprodpb/10BA6/production/... https://d1j2diro5xke84.cloudfront.net/photo-articles/featured_images/455/original/MarciBowers2012Headshot3-cq600.jpg?1422306229 https://d1j2diro5xke84.cloudfront.net/photo-articles/feature... http://womenofrubies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Geraldine-Roman-first-transgender-politician-elected-in-the-Philippines.jpg http://womenofrubies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Geraldin...
  - ausjke 10y ago
    the key is not about transgender itself, it's about the law, who defines you can be a transgender at will based on what's in your mind when you reach the restroom door, that means any man can get into women's restroom and vice versa any time. I'm sure bad thing will happen due to this rule directly. Some identity card might mitigate this situation, of course it will not get passed as it will be yet another discrimination.
peter303 10y ago
Is news.ycombinator.com visible in China?
guelo 10y ago
The sad fact is most people do not care about political freedom as long as they feel that their economic situation is adequate.
HowardMei 10y ago
There're a lot of valuable points in this topic's comments. I'd like to add one more which has been ignored: the GFW/Golden Shield was built to uphold the central government's authority over other provinces. One-to-many propaganda is the most important leverage for Beijing to suppress provincial rivals. And I assert the same propaganda leverage applys to the relationship between Washington D.C./Newyork and other states in the U.S. as well as the relationship between the U.S. and its allies. Censoring/manipulating the internet is not merely for silencing individuals.
deleted 10y ago
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qd6pwu4 10y ago
To everyone who hold the 'western value': do you know that one of the biggest jokes of your 'western value' is that you think it applies everywhere in the world in the same form, and you take it as a disguise and do harmful things to the people of other countries(of course, this is all done by the hands of politicians). You don't understand that there can be different values. So when you look at things from this perspective, you always think that the Chinese government is evil. You put 'human rights' all day long beside your mouth, haha, but never really investigate if human rights in China really worse than western countries. US government criticizes the Chinese government for this all day long but never say nothing about their arabic friends. And Snowden is from US, right? You have never had experience to truely live in a country of 1.4 billion people, let alone governing one. You don't understand how to unite people with such great quantity and diversity. You don't understand what chaos will come if everyone can purse his political dreams. Western value emphasizes on the value of individuals, while in china we balance between individual and the whole nation. Interestingly, I want to use the word '集体(jiti)' in Chinese, but I can't find a suitable word in English, so I used nation. Maybe you never thought of that. As to why CCP is blocking the internet? Because, the blocked sites contains values that is not really about freedom or human rights, instead that is like virus, that will do harm to our values and the interest our the Chinese people. For now, as a newborn ancient nation, our value is not strong enough yet. Your values will not bring Chinese people human rights and prosperity. No revolution can be done without being based on history, we have our tradition and our value. When it's powerful enough, enough that Chinese people won't be harmed by western politicians, that you are all convinced the world can have different values and still a harmony world. our value will be more open to the world. To those who won't like to trade their values for Chinese goods, my advice: Don't Buy ANY Chinese Goods. We can see whose life will become tougher. P.S.: As a Chinese, I have every means to access the 'free' internet(as anyone who really want in China) and know what's all about in it, know all the bad words about China and CCP and know most of them are not real. So I think censorship for now is a great idea for we Chinese to focus on forging a beautiful life for ourselves. for our people.
- Thriptic 10y ago
  > As to why CCP is blocking the internet? Because, the blocked sites contains values that is not really about freedom or human rights, instead that is like virus, that will do harm to our values and the interest our the Chinese people. Who defines what is in the best interest for the Chinese people?
agentgt 10y ago
I have wondered if there is a VPN in China so that you can see what China actually sees (the opposite is easy to find). I would imagine such a service not to be very public. I suppose you could buy hosting service in China and do it yourself... or is that not even possible? EDIT.. apparently there are now lots services that do this (I had looked a few years back).
deleted 10y ago
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alexchantavy 10y ago
> On the Sina Weibo microblogging site, his post was deleted by censors, and his newspaper soon afterward published an opinion piece defending the barrier and attacking Western media for hating it so much. I'd love to read this piece, I'm genuinely curious on how the GFW can be seen as a positive thing for ordinary people because I really can't see it as defensible.
wahsd 10y ago
See Reddit and Facebook for a domestic examples. I know there are differing views on Reddit in particular, but reality simply is that the "moderation" has become well beyond moderation and is well into censorship and authoritarian type of control and domination of the conversation that totally and fundamentally breaks the foundation of how Reddit is supposed to work. There is really no legitimate excuse (which is what they always are) to censor, remove, and ban users and comments that are not all out direct threats to commit criminal acts or spam. What is going on on Reddit in particular is a thoroughly liberal authoritarianism that is heavily dominated by a kind of perverse paternalistic supremacist, i.e., protecting users from hearing and seeing things that the authoritarian types deem unauthorized. Reddit, as example, is intended to allow the community, through a kind of civil society, determine the dialogue and conversation; but with ever spiking frequency, Reddit in particular is being sabotaged as the authoritarians remove the community's ability to shape the conversation. The mods on Reddit in particular are thoroughly acting as common authoritarian goons by patrolling the discussions and routinely removing comments and conversations they decree as unauthorized or very much like "speaking against the regime". It's clearly an authoritarian mentality eating its way through Reddit at the moment. Sure, some will say "private website, blah blah blah" but that's not the point really. It's about civil responsibility, which, ironically, the liberal authoritarian goons on Reddit supposedly frequently espouse regarding all sorts of other topics. As the internet continues to be consolidated and shrinks and is ever more controlled by the likes of Facebook that is controlled by Zuckerberg, who's goal is for Facebook to replace the internet, you will have ever more increasingly controlled spaces for public discussions and at some point there will be no non-private spaces for discussion to any effective degree. At that point we have come full circle and devolved back to a monarchical and aristocratic type of social structure where all of society and it's people only operate in "private websites" and the justification is that because the ruling class control everything and all forms of communication, like Kings, Dukes, and Princes, you are claimed to have no right to have conversations. I know many, rather short sighted people may dismiss what I say, but reality is that is a rather counter-intuitive and unexpected manner, the internet is really leading to far more control and consolidation of power and homogenization of society and collapse of diversity. It's rather odd that large segments of society are all supportive of things that will end in demise of the very tings they espouse. In many ways, the current phase humanity is in with regard to neo-liberalist views, is akin to investment in a ponzi scheme. Everyone (liberal, tech, globalist, etc types) is all Golden Age level indulged in excess and self-gratification because they invested all their money in a ponzi scheme that has huge returns on paper, but the day will come when you can't withdraw the false returns or the scheme collapses altogether.
nitwit005 10y ago
I'm not so sure that countries will be all that enthused to follow China's example. Aside from the technical and infrastructure costs, it's evident that they're using a huge amount of human manpower. A lot of countries don't have the knowhow or billions to do it. At this point, I suspect the lesson will be to block all sites except those that force people to use their real names, and arrest them if they say something unapproved. Intimidation is pretty cheap.
whack 10y ago
To play devil's advocate: The US does also engages in censorship. Non-citizens are heavily restricted in the kind of political lobbying and contributions that they are allowed to make. We can argue about the distinction between political contributions/lobbying vs speech, but let's examine the intent behind the US laws: to limit the influence that foreign countries/organizations can have on domestic politics. One could credibly argue that Chinese censorship of the internet falls along the same vein. A completely open internet would immediately result in China being inundated by western perspectives and arguments. An inundation that would be disproportionate, simply due to the west's economic lead and online headstart. One can understand any non-western-aligned nation being concerned about its domestic politics being strongly influenced by the western-free-speech-megaphone. Overall, I still think that internet censorship does more harm than good, but it's worth considering the above.
tmptmp 10y ago
What bothers me more is the chilling silence on the issue of human rights violation carried out by the followers of communism [1],[2] by most of the intellectuals (mostly humanities professors) in USA who are very keen on criticizing USA for whatever perceived/projected censorship and violation of human rights. There is a huge possibility that these intellectuals are either crooks who have been paid and bought by the communists and/or are fools ("useful idiots")[3] who believe in the communist propaganda. For every criticism dealt out against USA for human rights abuse and other governmental crimes/sins, the communist nations must be criticized a 1000 times. Communism as a ideology is still a great threat to world peace. The followers and believers of communism have wreaked havoc on various parts of the world that matches nothing and these crooks blame the free market based democratic western nations for problems in their own countries. I don't deny that capitalism has its disadvantages but it is by far the most humane, most successful and most benevolent government/societal system that has existed ever before whereas communism has resulted in extremely corrupt and very abusive government/societal systems in the world. The things like the communist party chairman, the politburo members, and a bunch of their cronies got the entire benefits in a very skewed manner whereas most of the general public got only hardship should not be forgotten at any cost by freedom lovers. So, we must not forget that the USA has served the world by taking a stance against this vicious ideology called communism and its equally vicious followers. We must raise this issue every time USA and capitalist free and open market based democracy gets criticized in favor of communism/socialism by the communists/socialists. Some links you may find interesting here [2], [3], [4]. [1] https://sentinelblog.com/2015/12/10/maos-monstrous-record-has-been-suppressed/ https://sentinelblog.com/2015/12/10/maos-monstrous-record-ha... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot [4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017839/Madman-starved-60-million-death-Devastating-book-reveals-Maos-megalomania-turned-China-madhouse.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017839/Madman-starv... [5] https://tiananmenstremendousachievements.wordpress.com/tag/maos-tyranny/ https://tiananmenstremendousachievements.wordpress.com/tag/m...

345 points by molecule 10y ago

bsder 10y ago

I would argue that even without the Great Firewall, China starts isolated by the fact that its language isn't really shared by anybody else.

tellarin 10y ago
Nitpicking, but Mandarin Chinese is one of the official languages in Singapore (with English, Tamil, and Malay). Also, there is an immense Chinese diaspora throughout the world (especially in neighbouring countries), of which many became multilingual and have access to other media and can still communicate back.
paradite 10y ago
So is every single language on plant earth: http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/World-Languages.jpg http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/World-Languages.jpg

kitchi 10y ago

> VPN Software is pretty simple Can someone explain why VPNs are "simple"? What do they mean by simple?

deleted 10y ago
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unlinker 10y ago
They mean easy to detect and disconnect.

kitchi 10y ago

> VPN software is simple Can someone explain why VPN software is "simple"? I thought it encrypted your data so they cannot be inspected, plus if you tunnel over the HTTP/HTTPS ports how can VPN traffic be separated out from "regular" traffic?

fiveyearsinarow 10y ago
Because to establish the tunnel, you need to send some "handshake" packets to the server. Those packets are not encrypted and can be easily identified and dropped.
- netheril96 10y ago
  Which is why `shadowsocks` has become popular to bypass the GFW: it has no such handshake phase and hence cannot be easily identified.
  - fiveyearsinarow 10y ago
    ...and when GFW has trouble stopping `shadowsocks`, it threatens the author of the software. GFW is not only the technology, which is easy to bypass, but also the system that average citizen cannot escape.
wsuskc 10y ago
>if you tunnel over the HTTP/HTTPS ports how can VPN traffic be separated out from "regular" traffic? it can't. that's why openvpn doesn't work in China but openvpn tunneled over stunnel (TLS proxy for arbitrary TCP streams) does.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

windmaple 10y ago

Does it?

slezyr 10y ago
You can try to as them about tank man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
- netheril96 10y ago
  The 1989 incident is not secret here in China. Almost everyone I have come contact with know it, and most of them do not know how to bypass the GFW. But of course you cannot talk about it in the public.
- paradite 10y ago
  I, as well as my parents, my grandparents, and many other Chinese, know about the incident, but we do not necessarily agree with the Western media's opinions on it. After all, our parents were the ones that witnessed it, and they should have a better understanding of what really happened. You can read this article by Western media to get a different perspective: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-leader-talks-to-60-minutes/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-leader-talks-to-60-minute...
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure that all but a very few of them watched it on TV just like everyone else did. Well, not exactly like everyone else did - a lot later, a lot shorter, and edited and presented by the tank. edit: I'm overestimating Chinese media freedom here. Furtive word of mouth and descriptions from people who have travelled outside of China are probably a more accurate way that Chinese people have learned about this facet of their own history - am I right?
    - paradite 10y ago
      You are right. It's good to get opinions from people who are living abroad. But I would be cautious over the recounts of the "Chinese dissidents" who are expelled or fled from China. They are more likely to be motivated to give a biased recount against the government as a way of expressing their resentment with the government. They also often have supports from people/organizations who are eager to find ways to paint Chinese government black (for whatever reason they might have). (Think the situation of Snowden)

mc32 10y ago

Why is it surprising that it works? It comes from strength as well as buy-in. People know its censored, but they accept the bargain. In this case, I think Chinese buying the Han homogeneity helps in that there isn't an us vs them struggle. But rather an us vs the agitators mentality. And being nationalistic [affinity to the homeland] helps. So long as people see the service provided by the government to be worth the deal, they'll put up with it. Just as we make an arguably similar, but obviously different bargain when we put up what some people call security theatre. We "put up with it" so long, in balance the government gives us an acceptable deal. For China, where in a communist country you have daily labor riots or protests against corrupt officials, people buy into the case that with a scandalous press they, the population, by and large, could be worse off due to unrest and instability which could arguably threaten the viability of the CCP as well as the one nation notion.

nullnullnullnil 10y ago
FWIW, my personal experience says differently. I recently got back from a few months in China, and while I was there I had a conversation with a young man who was 100% convinced Tiananmen Square was a rumor started by anti government 'bad guys'.
- narrator 10y ago
  Think of a person of median intelligence. Now realize that half the population is dumber than that guy. That's who propaganda is intended for, not the Hacker News crowd (apologies to anyone on Hacker News with below median intelligence, you're welcome here too :) ). Same thing in China. The people who are easily convinced of things is who the propaganda is intended for and who the government wants to protect from foreign opinion.
  - manmal 10y ago
    Median might be about right - here in Austria we witnessed yesterday that almost 50% of the ppl fell for a rightwing wanna-be dictator running for presidency. And there wasn't even brainwashing involved, apart from ads and word of mouth.

fpoling 10y ago

It may work now, but I suspect in the longer term it could be very harmful. As with stocks, it is like getting short-term calmness for the price of blowing up in the future. Noise of internet freedom train society deal with rumors etc., that may be essential for survival.

chillacy 10y ago

> China has achieved this. It can communicate with the outside world, meanwhile Western opinion cannot easily penetrate as ideological tools Media is powerful. And even in the US, most of us self-censor our news (liberal vs conservative media) to the point where we're largely reading only views we agree on (HN is no different in that regard). I always find it amusing that we can all read the same news with different conclusions and come out thinking that we're right all the time. A lot of people assume that people in China are unaffected by all the censorship, but even if they're aware of it, I wonder if censorship in China actually reduces cognitive dissonance at this point, and it's actually more agreeable to read censored news than not. Much like advertising or the opinions of our friends/family, ideas can be subtle but extremely influencing.

jgreen10 10y ago
When I'm in Russia, I find the state-controlled media surprisingly critical of government policy and very outward looking. They are clearly ignoring the elephant in the room: the country being an ungovernable pool of corruption that can only be kept together by instilling nationalism and foreign threats and an authoritarian leader, but then again, it's not like US media are really asking critical questions. With or without free press, no one wants to hear that they're in a mess. It's much nicer to think that everything is good, but the evil-doers are trying to ruin it.
- argonaut 10y ago
  The US media as a whole may not be asking critical questions, but that's not the point of free press. The fact is that the US media is free to ask critical questions, and therefore some, though not all, of the media ask critical questions. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
  - chrischen 10y ago
    Free to still allows another way to allow the powerful to control and manipulate. In order to truly be a free system the system has to be fair as well, which means more income equality in addition to a free press system. If money controls the "free" press and money distribution is heavily skewed, then it's not really a free press. This is how the US system works.

IIAOPSW 10y ago

The Chinese own China and can decide for themselves what is best for their country. But as an American living in China, I fear that some of what I see here can and will happen in America one day.

duncan_bayne 10y ago
Sure; but you're not making a moral argument here right? That is, they can decide, but it's still objectively wrong.
- IIAOPSW 10y ago
  I am a guest in this country. Irrespective of what I believe is right or unalienable it is not my place to insert myself into their politics.
  - duncan_bayne 10y ago
    Ever? I'm hesitant to invoke Godwin here, but do you agree that at least in boundary cases, it's morally permissible to directly force a change in the internal politics of another country?
    - ralusek 10y ago
      Why would morals respect national borders?
    - dragontamer 10y ago
      If he's an American citizen, then he should just leave if things become really bad.
  - babuskov 10y ago
    Wow. I wish if more Americans would think like that.
hamstergene 10y ago
If you're locked in a kitchen, even though there is more than one choice of food are you free to decide what to eat? What if you was born there and don't really know all variety options you could have? Centralized propaganda makes "freedom of choice" very controversial topic. Especially when its source has all the power to censor and prosecute.

vonklaus 10y ago

The thing is, information is the weapon of the 21st century. We are already litigating the cold war in the 3 most popular courts: the olympics, the media, and financial markets. We cooperate with China, but what will become obvious if a horrifying 1984 censorship scenario evolves more forecfully is that nations and powerbrokers have different information thay want buried/codified. So while China censors it's internet, there will be many places that actively promote (or at best do not dissuade) the content that China is burying. Just as Russia publishes content the U.S. would prefer not to be published/ is critical of America. So Censorship does work as does fearmongering and threats of violence. However, even in China's situation (which is horrifying) where you can be killed for promoting information/speaking out about some things there will always be groups outside the region with the information and as it becomes scarce it becomes more powerful. Peacekeepers, activists, anti-chinese nationals and subversive governement agents all have incentive to work against chinese censorship, so censorship as a whole can not be successful hopefully as there will always be factions and these factions will gain the highest leverage disseminating the information that is the most policed and downright censored shit in their counterparties region.

zhte415 10y ago

China's firewall is largely constructed to create technology transfer towards China. This may be in the form of hindering sales for comapanies they may have interesting opportunities for investment, from sports shoes to embedded microchips, to financial products. It is also part of a much greater Golden Shield network. But a lot has changed over the past 5 years. A contrast of goals/objectives: the Golden Shield formerly largely about public security and media control, a network prided under the former premier (national harmony being the end-game), but now goals are much, much, more nationalistic at a strategic level across China.

eob 10y ago
> China's firewall is largely constructed to create technology transfer towards China. That's been a huge effect of the GFW, but is there material indicating it was the original purpose? My understanding was that much of the explosion in Chinese censorship tech happened as a way to prevent social media from gaining control over the news cycle. (i.e., when a train wreck occurs, the Party prefers stick-to-the-facts news coverage over whose-to-blame social media mobs)
- zhte415 10y ago
  Original purpose? Multifaceted, but certainly not just internet focused, it was a part of a much bigger thing (Golden Shield) that involves submitting photocopies of IDs to get a mobile phone SIM to an urban alley-way with CCTV and a cartoon of a friendly cop pasted on the wall. >when a train wreck occurs, the Party prefers stick-to-the-facts news coverage over whose-to-blame social media mobs combating whose-to-blame scaremongering isn't in the GFW's scope, as in regarding blocking foreign access, but is in the grey area with the rest of Golden Shield, such as requiring ICP licences in order to host a website. Today, however, Golden Shield is pretty mature, high-speed train-wrecks being covered by diggers is generally accepted as not OK, and most of the action happens on WeChat anyway with gov't ID papers issued to get a SIM, therefore a number, therefore a WeChat account. A huge amount of fraud happens on WeChat, despite these paperwork needs.
  - 10y ago

comex 10y ago

So what about Tor and obfsproxy? Does it actually (still) work? If so, why don't more people use it?; if not, why not? I can't easily find up-to-date information about this through Google - which I find odd, since China is such an important use case for Tor that I would expect them to maintain some sort of status page. Maybe the information is more readily available in Chinese...

nullnullnullnil 10y ago
I just got back from a few months in China. These services are definitely blocked through DPI. It's frustrating. It's also interesting what happens to your mind when you can't read what you'd like to, talk about what you'd like to, and revert the accepted status quo for everything.
- 13of40 10y ago
  While you were there, did you get a feel for whether people there would pay for a semi-reliable bridge through the firewall?
  - nbevans 10y ago
    "Will they pay for freedom"? Seriously?
    - GantzGraf 10y ago
      I thought it was a good question. "Do people in China in general care enough about censorship to pay for access to uncensored internet?" doesn't have an explicitly obvious answer, does it? They could be happy with their internet as is. They could be unhappy and willing to pay. They could be unhappy but unwilling/unable to pay.
    - 13of40 10y ago
      I think there's a parallel here with how the FCC tries to censor certain words and images, but you can pay a premium to get them via non-public, historically illegal [1], means. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1468 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1468

eva1984 10y ago

Not surprising. And I doubt other country can do the same. Several factors makes China a unique case: 1. Massive domestic market, China along can have its own internet ecosystem, which is the fundamental reason why GFW can endure. 2.Conformist culture due to its Confucian tradition 3.Communist government has firm grasp of its power and stay vigilant to any sign or power that acts against it.

usrusr 10y ago
#1 trumps everything else. Try doing the same in a market the size of a typical European nation and you end up with an embarrassing digital backwater. Do it in a market the size of China and you can trail silicon valley by a few years at most, constantly gaining relative competitiveness as the global market of "online stuff" slows from wild, exiting exploration to establishment. I suspect that #2 and #3 are far behind what I would put on #2, plain old language barrier, but I am surely no China expert.

narrator 10y ago

There would not be a hundred billion dollar ad industry if propaganda didn't work. We wouldn't run multi-million dollar presidential campaigns if propaganda didn't work. The whole field of social psychology and public relations would be a useless exercise if propaganda didn't work. This is the fundamental problem with democracy: people are easily influenced. The antecedents of the current Chinese communist party, the Bolsheviks knew this and they decided that the inner party must be the vanguard of the proletariat in order to prevent the proletariat from being easily led astray by the faith of the masses in the monarchs. Of course, they were wrong, for different reasons, but objective truth is a hard thing and often a weak voice amid the bullhorns blasting propaganda. Anyone interested in this topic should watch the great documentary "The Century Of The Self"[1] that goes into the history of the public relations industry and mass persuasion in general. [1] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2d29tf_the-century-of-the-self-part-1-of-4-happiness-machines_school http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2d29tf_the-century-of-the-...

unexistance 10y ago
even the wiki entry on Edward Bernays is very interesting :D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
studentrob 10y ago
> This is the fundamental problem with democracy: people are easily influenced That's not a problem with democracy. It's how people learn. We learn something and form an opinion about it. The problem comes when only certain media sources are allowed. In that case, it's harder for people to discuss alternate viewpoints
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  No, the problem isn't when only certain media sources are allowed - honestly, the problem is when any media sources are allowed at all. Frankly, I think Amercians are as deceived by propaganda as the Chinese. Did we somehow forget in this thread that in western press, one can rarely find an article that isn't full of bullshit? Even if the reasons differ (western media do this for profit), the end result is the same.

dasil003 10y ago

I don't subscribe to common western black and white views on US vs Chinese freedom, and in fact I am fairly paranoid about the US government overreach of power, however I don't see that Chinese-style internet censorship has any applicability to the US or European governments. I'm far more concerned about the power exterted by increasingly large corporations who want extract as much rent from the network as possible. I'm also more concerned about covert government surveillance. But in terms of outright censorship, that will just piss off too many people for little gain. There's no competitive advantage to be gained the way there is for China.

joe_the_user 10y ago
I don't subscribe to common western black and white views on US vs Chinese freedom It's maybe, black and dark gray. US media and US spin interests can corruptly manipulate a lot. But I don't see how that sort of power makes the blunt repression of China any better.
agumonkey 10y ago
Anecdote: On Omegle a while ago, I chat with a Chinese girl, all Chinese guys I met there were always anxious about how other people would see their country, so I proceed to explain that I grew up very fond of many things about China, martial arts, silk clothes, temples, food, pictural art, kanjis. The girl listens happily and then tells me 'you know, not everything in China is good, <this> <that> <this> ... ' Then 3 seconds blank. Then 'oh god .. god ... no' then left asking me to forget what she said, that her country is great and she loves it very much. Then quit. I guess she was worried her messages would be logged and have consequences.
- allemagne 10y ago
  Seems more like you were successfully trolled.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Could be, but I spent a huge amount of time on Omegle, stats from 10K conversations, and that kind of troll was almost non existant. American teens trying to spot sex seekers (to leverage in positive or negative ways) = 70% of the users over a 9 month period. The rest were mostly bored cubicle workers. Chinese users had recurrent pattern: struggling to type, low english level, similar center of interests. That girl was very similar (except for the english level). Maybe you're right but it didn't feel like this at the time.

jondubois 10y ago

The Great Firewall actually makes a lot of sense. Everyone thinks of themselves as being rational and unbiased - But in fact, we are all irrational, biased and at times hypocritical. Those people who think that they are rational and objective are usually the least rational and most hypocritical of all because they lack self-awareness. As westerners, as much as we like to pretend that we know the whole truth, in reality, what we know is only a biased approximation of it. The west likes to impose their version of the truth on the whole world but China is determined to stick to their version - I don't see anything wrong with that; especially if it works in their favour. Regardless of how you look at it; the west is aggressive when it comes to spreading its ideals and values. If China wasn't so protecive, they would have become economically dependent on the west (as opposed to being the powerhouse they are today).

gohrt 10y ago
Who is "China" who picks "their" version? The Chinese Communist Party, or the Chinese people? How would China become dependent on the West if Chinese people had access to non-CommunityParty ideas?
- jondubois 10y ago
  Chinese people would be consuming western media through Facebook, Twitter etc... Through this media, they would be shown advertisements for US companies selling US products. Soon enough, Chinese people would no longer be content with Chinese-made goods and services from small Chinese suppliers (e.g. through decentralized marketplaces like Alibaba) - Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketplaces like Amazon and Apple store - Basically the money would leave China and they would all be worse off on average. By keeping western media out, they keep Chinese money in. Don't ignore the fact that media is paid for almost entirely by advertising and that advertising is paid for entirely by companies who need to sell products.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    > Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketplaces like Amazon and Apple store Both totally available in China already via their local forms (store.apple.cn and amazon.cn). My wife orders from Amazon a lot.

xyzzy4 10y ago

That's ironic because the Washington Post is censoring this article from me with their paywall.

litaohackernews 10y ago

Remember Edward Snowden?

schuke 10y ago

Maybe it doesn't work. I've always wondered why, among so many long-ruling authoritarian regimes, China is almost the only one with such strict censorship. Yes there was the Arab Spring but look at Saudi Arabia, Russia, Belarus, Vietnam..., they don't ban Facebook yet the incumbents' rule do not face exceptionally greater challenge than China. Maybe all censorship does is to give the Communist Party is false sense of security. Maybe it's something else that's working and censorship is simply free-riding.

SXX 10y ago
China don't have as much natural resources per citizen as Russia, don't have huge totalitarian sponsor next to like Belarus and don't have as much oil as Saudi Arabia. Never did any research on Vietnam so have no idea. Reason why Russia regime still exist without heavy censorship is billions and billions of dollars burn to sustain level of consumption. Russian economy is nothing compared to China, but hey most of people there still able to earn more than average chinese and even more money dumped into Moscow (only city budget is $24B). So in past they just bought votes directly or indirectly instead of enforcing censorship. But since oil prices are low and they run out of money there is more and more censorship appear. For instance more censorship-related laws adopted since 2014 than in 14 years prior that year.
- tim333 10y ago
  Vietnam has mild censorship - the block the BBC unless you use a VPN - and the government isn't that unpopular with free health and education and 7% growth so they don't have to try that hard. You can still end up fired/imprisoned/deported if you do the wrong thing though.
studentrob 10y ago
> Maybe it's something else that's working and censorship is simply free-riding. Yup. I'm sure throwing protesters in prison without trial helps, along with kidnapping Hong Kong booksellers, etc.
xentronium 10y ago
Russia doesn't have direct censorship, however all mainstream media is nation-controlled. Also there is an internet censorship registry/banlist that blocks some of the opposition media for "exremism".

venomsnake 10y ago

China is just making real the wet dreams of RIAA and MPAA executives. It is coming in the west too - for copyright, hate speech, terrorism, child porn - the internet will be as tightly locked here too. The fact that so much of it is already a walled garden makes it easier. Remove the web browser from the iDevices and you have a very compelling ecosystem for any dictatorship. It may take 50 years more, but the trends are unmistakable. We need next generation of communication networks. That make laugh of national sovereignty. I think google's project loon and the likes are a good way. Fill a country sky with relaying stations and the government will make itself broke trying to take them down.

peteretep 10y ago

> In April, the U.S. government officially classified > it as a barrier to trade Interested to see what happens if this gets taken up at the WTO.

bad_user 10y ago

Of course it does. I wouldn't bet that it will last though. I often tell people how I was born under communism and that what happened before 1989 in Romania and maybe in other Easter European countries makes the 1984 novel seem unrealistic and boring. We had far worst forms of censorship and propaganda, paranoia about being caught with doublethink by nosy neighbors was at al times high, yet everything looked normal, roses red, sky blue, etc. But the social dissent was there, buried within all layers of society, because you cannot stop thought or even word of mouth. And it didn't happen overnight, it took more than 40 years, but in the end we shot our dictators on Christmas day. Not a smart thing to do, not real justice, but you know, when the revolution came people feared for their lives and in the end the many trump the few, a fact that governments tend to forget. I don't care much about what the Chinese do within their borders. The far more aggravating thing is that we tolerate China, choose to do business with Chinese companies and buy Chinese products. Now that's fucked up, because we are trading our values, for which people freaking died to win, for short term convenience, also sending the message that it's OK as a country to violate basic human rights, as long as you're powerful enough. Money trumps everything, great thing to teach our kinds, kudos folks.

studentrob 10y ago
> The far more aggravating thing is that we tolerate China, choose to do business with Chinese companies and buy Chinese products. A lot of people view trade, tourism and internet communications as a means of fostering diplomacy and preventing war. I wouldn't say we have traded our values. Companies with bad work environments overseas aren't immune to negative perceptions from home.
Kristine1975 10y ago
>because we are trading our values Just leaving this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...
justsaysmthng 10y ago
> The far more aggravating thing is that we tolerate China, choose to do business with Chinese companies and buy Chinese products. A trade embargo (aka cold war) would be a lot worse for everyone involved.. Leads to arms race and threats of war, even less freedom and more injustice for the people (eg North Korea). > we are trading our values, for which people freaking died to win, for short term convenience .. Yeah, we do that with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq and many more. That's the essence of business - trade one thing for another. We trade our "freedom to do whatever we want" for a salary. We trade our "freedom to party" for the happiness of raising a child... It's one of those laws of life which we might not entirely like, but cannot escape. > people freaking died to win People die - that's the only absolute we can rely on. Don't get carried away with "dying for .. something", most often this is not true - most died because delusional leaders sent them into battle ... only after the fact their death got dressed into "honorable cause".. In the end, the higher morals are dictated by whoever managed to seize power.. Which, by the way brings us back to the censorship thing..

jokoon 10y ago

I don't really know if it's that much worrying. I mean can the entire world really criticize china, when you see so many companies having influence in democratically elected governments? If you look at the political science of it, I think that this firewall is there to mitigate the potential instability of the chinese government. This is not new. I mean I'm okay with critics as long as it aims for progress, but the reality is that you don't just snap your fingers and "tada democracy"! So when you don't have democracy, you will have other ways to have a country that is peaceful and thriving enough. Restricted speech is one of those methods. If you compare the situation in china with the west, it's not so different: there is still some influence between large corporations and government in western countries, and we don't like it either, and free speech doesn't always solve those problems. It's less corrupt, but I think China has really caught up. I would be cautious about putting "free speech" on a pedestal. What works for western countries wouldn't necessarily do for countries which don't have the same customs, history, or culture. Free speech is one of those double edged swords that are well regulated in western countries, but is not in other parts of the world.

paradite 10y ago
I agree. But first rule of HN: Do not defend China or you will be down-voted to the bottom.

known 10y ago

Bread and Circuses: bribe the population with free bread and distract them with circuses whilst the rulers do whatever they want.

SFJulie 10y ago

You can censor by scarcity (China) or censor by overabundance of trivia (Western). When Kardashian out weigth cultural news, PR of corps outweigth economical analysis, half baked tutorial replaces consistent tutorial, unproven science replaces science : you drown signal in noise. How many Western citizens have read that the middle eastern wars are mainly about the top 4 weapon dealers (UK, USA, Fr, Russia) bribing locals (see #clintonmails & #panamapapers) in order to ensure the growth of their economy and the disposal of scarce resources (oil, Phosphate, Uranium, Copper, Gold)? How many citizens knows that we are fueling education/health bubbles based on good intentions (NHS) without control (incompetence?) that results in counter productive results? There are 2 ways to censor: cut the access to information (earth friendly solution) or hide the information in a haystack (resulting in 2-3% of global energy burned in spin doctoring).

Flimm 10y ago
The Chinese government does censor by overabundance of trivia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party . Do you have evidence that Western governments are doing similar things?
- Frqy3 10y ago
  Not too hard to find. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...
flatM 10y ago
Very spot-on post. I don't have any facts or numbers though. But my gut feelings is that the percentage of people that survive the scarcity (China) or overabundance (West) are comparable.

nihonde 10y ago

It's really odd when my Chinese friends go home and go "dark" on "free world" social media until they return. They usually get emails while in China, though.

crasp 10y ago

So by the looks of the picture halfway down the page the porn filter in the UK has also been removed because they are labeled as 'free'? or is porn not a part of (internet) freedom anymore?

UVB-76 10y ago
Apparently there are many shades of 'free' The UK scored 24 out of 100, 0 being the most free.
- aavotins 10y ago
  With Germany prosecuting people who download torrents, UK banning internet pornography and US manhunt against Edward Snowden and Assange, there is definitely more than one shade of free. The image of freedom is being shaped and tailored for everyone individually, it's a Brave New World out there.

studentrob 10y ago

The metric saying 1/3 of the world faces heavy internet censorship seems large until you remember 1/5 of the world lives in China China is one of two countries that doesn't have access to Facebook and Twitter. The other is Iran. I'm not in love with FB or Twitter, but for tracking censorship, they are a useful measurement.

studentrob 10y ago

This article fails to define what "works" means Does censorship give China a better economy? Does it make people more happy? Safe? Does censorship eradicate certain ideas? Does it prevent people from communicating domestically or internationally? There's no data in the article that suggests any of this is true.

azernik 10y ago
It keeps the Party in power. From the second sentence: > preventing information harmful to the Communist Party from entering the country.
- studentrob 10y ago
  Does it? I'd say that has more to do with throwing protesters in prison for indefinite amounts of time with no trial.
appleflaxen 10y ago
Works means "is technically feasible". It doesn't matter if you think it's a good idea or not: the ruling class in China thinks it is. And any government who thinks it's a good idea in the future knows it's technically possible based on China's example.
- studentrob 10y ago
  Right, all they need to do is convince their population to abandon Facebook and use the government sanctioned social media. I'm sure that will go over well.
  - appleflaxen 10y ago
    Agreed that the public won't abandon facebook. But I don't understand what point you are making.

UVB-76 10y ago

Link to the actual report: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2015 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2015 Let's not kid ourselves, though. The US scored 19 and UK scored 24 (on the scale of 0-100, 0 being most free) Censorship is alive and well in the West.

okc 10y ago
The criteria for censorship at the 20 points level - could be debated as - quite healthy criteria. Criteria such as the government controlling online harassment is classed, rightly, as censorship. Political anarchy would be the reflection of 0 point score. Is 0, 10, 20, even 30 or 40 points the optimum score: thats debatable. At the 80+ level, its really not debatable.

smartbit 10y ago

Leiden University is founded in 1575 in The Netherlands, not in Germany

mizchief2 10y ago

Good thing the internet in the US is free and not regulated by the FCC. Oh wait that's right we gave that up so that individual service providers can't make some sites faster than others.

puppetmaster3 10y ago

Here is an example of recent FaceBook censorship: http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8

itsthecourier 10y ago

Been in Beijing last month, the great firewall was an increíble move for local internet companies. Google would had won the battle with Baidu, Facebook and Twitter with Wechat, just to mention a few. Nos, they are so big that when the firewall comes down they will keep running the market

itsthecourier 10y ago

jonstokes 10y ago

Broken English, and most of the few comments you have in your profile are pro-China. Hmmmm.....

flatM 10y ago
Um, not a native English speaker here. Though as long as I can articulate my thoughts to have a meaningful discussion, I don't think that's being an issue. I would rather you focus on the topic and contribute your thoughts or counter-arguments, than focusing on trivia or throw off 5 cents party stuff to close this fruitful conversation.
- galdosdi 10y ago
  You can definitely articulate your thoughts enough to have a meaningful discussion, your written English is indistinguishable from college graduate level native written English. I am seriously curious what small hint convinced jonstokes your English was not native, because it was too small for me to catch I guess.
  - jonstokes 10y ago
    I'm an editor, so I have an inordinately fine sense of who makes what kinds of tiny errors.
    - galdosdi 10y ago
      OH. That actually makes sense.
  - flatM 10y ago
    Thanks for the nice words. That's why hackernews is the forum I frequent most, since we can have discussions over almost every imaginable topics in an intelligent and decent manner. Even it is as political and ideological as this one.
- PeCaN 10y ago
  ...I actually thought you were a native speaker at first. Your English is pretty good and it's easy to understand your thoughts.

jonstokes 10y ago

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" -- John Gilmore. Even back in the slashdot days I always thought this oft-repeated quote was more of a hopeful rallying cry than an actual statement of fact. And I think it's been clear for at least ten years that it's definitely not true.

tomc1985 10y ago
I wouldn't say that... but what if you could block all the routes? That appears to be the case here....

snnn 10y ago

They didn't tell you the most dangerous part: The TV box in everyone's home. It is far more powerful than the Great Fire Wall. 1. It's a part of the internet. More than a half internet traffics are video streams. 2. It's a bug 3. It can do End2End monitoring and filtering.

ausjke 10y ago

What a good comparison to Berlin Wall that is. Never thought about it. Whenever I went to China the VPN-fight-with-GFW has always been a nightmare, and my Android phone could not get updated either as google is 100% blocked there. On the other hand, in USA the is near 100% freedom including the internet, but that does have some side effects itself, e.g. nowadays any gender can get into any restroom depends on what he/she feels, that's when I hate "too many freedom", where a few forces their will on the majority public that is normally silent or staying-politically-correct, yes transgender does deserve their rights, but what about the rights for the 99.9% of us that are not transgenders?

knodi123 10y ago
> what about the rights for the 99.9% of us that are not transgenders? Well? What about them? What exactly is being done to their rights?
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
Please educate yourself about what being transgender actually means. To give you a rough idea: If you think that people should use the bathroom that matches their birth certificate, you should expect to meet these people in your bathroom (and yes, I am assuming that you are male): http://www.gardenstateequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Andy-file-photo.jpg http://www.gardenstateequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/0... http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/695/cpsprodpb/10BA6/production/_88381586_dsc_0647.jpg http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/695/cpsprodpb/10BA6/production/... https://d1j2diro5xke84.cloudfront.net/photo-articles/featured_images/455/original/MarciBowers2012Headshot3-cq600.jpg?1422306229 https://d1j2diro5xke84.cloudfront.net/photo-articles/feature... http://womenofrubies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Geraldine-Roman-first-transgender-politician-elected-in-the-Philippines.jpg http://womenofrubies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Geraldin...
- ausjke 10y ago
  the key is not about transgender itself, it's about the law, who defines you can be a transgender at will based on what's in your mind when you reach the restroom door, that means any man can get into women's restroom and vice versa any time. I'm sure bad thing will happen due to this rule directly. Some identity card might mitigate this situation, of course it will not get passed as it will be yet another discrimination.

peter303 10y ago

Is news.ycombinator.com visible in China?

guelo 10y ago

The sad fact is most people do not care about political freedom as long as they feel that their economic situation is adequate.

HowardMei 10y ago

There're a lot of valuable points in this topic's comments. I'd like to add one more which has been ignored: the GFW/Golden Shield was built to uphold the central government's authority over other provinces. One-to-many propaganda is the most important leverage for Beijing to suppress provincial rivals. And I assert the same propaganda leverage applys to the relationship between Washington D.C./Newyork and other states in the U.S. as well as the relationship between the U.S. and its allies. Censoring/manipulating the internet is not merely for silencing individuals.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

qd6pwu4 10y ago

To everyone who hold the 'western value': do you know that one of the biggest jokes of your 'western value' is that you think it applies everywhere in the world in the same form, and you take it as a disguise and do harmful things to the people of other countries(of course, this is all done by the hands of politicians). You don't understand that there can be different values. So when you look at things from this perspective, you always think that the Chinese government is evil. You put 'human rights' all day long beside your mouth, haha, but never really investigate if human rights in China really worse than western countries. US government criticizes the Chinese government for this all day long but never say nothing about their arabic friends. And Snowden is from US, right? You have never had experience to truely live in a country of 1.4 billion people, let alone governing one. You don't understand how to unite people with such great quantity and diversity. You don't understand what chaos will come if everyone can purse his political dreams. Western value emphasizes on the value of individuals, while in china we balance between individual and the whole nation. Interestingly, I want to use the word '集体(jiti)' in Chinese, but I can't find a suitable word in English, so I used nation. Maybe you never thought of that. As to why CCP is blocking the internet? Because, the blocked sites contains values that is not really about freedom or human rights, instead that is like virus, that will do harm to our values and the interest our the Chinese people. For now, as a newborn ancient nation, our value is not strong enough yet. Your values will not bring Chinese people human rights and prosperity. No revolution can be done without being based on history, we have our tradition and our value. When it's powerful enough, enough that Chinese people won't be harmed by western politicians, that you are all convinced the world can have different values and still a harmony world. our value will be more open to the world. To those who won't like to trade their values for Chinese goods, my advice: Don't Buy ANY Chinese Goods. We can see whose life will become tougher. P.S.: As a Chinese, I have every means to access the 'free' internet(as anyone who really want in China) and know what's all about in it, know all the bad words about China and CCP and know most of them are not real. So I think censorship for now is a great idea for we Chinese to focus on forging a beautiful life for ourselves. for our people.

Thriptic 10y ago
> As to why CCP is blocking the internet? Because, the blocked sites contains values that is not really about freedom or human rights, instead that is like virus, that will do harm to our values and the interest our the Chinese people. Who defines what is in the best interest for the Chinese people?

agentgt 10y ago

I have wondered if there is a VPN in China so that you can see what China actually sees (the opposite is easy to find). I would imagine such a service not to be very public. I suppose you could buy hosting service in China and do it yourself... or is that not even possible? EDIT.. apparently there are now lots services that do this (I had looked a few years back).

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

alexchantavy 10y ago

> On the Sina Weibo microblogging site, his post was deleted by censors, and his newspaper soon afterward published an opinion piece defending the barrier and attacking Western media for hating it so much. I'd love to read this piece, I'm genuinely curious on how the GFW can be seen as a positive thing for ordinary people because I really can't see it as defensible.

wahsd 10y ago

See Reddit and Facebook for a domestic examples. I know there are differing views on Reddit in particular, but reality simply is that the "moderation" has become well beyond moderation and is well into censorship and authoritarian type of control and domination of the conversation that totally and fundamentally breaks the foundation of how Reddit is supposed to work. There is really no legitimate excuse (which is what they always are) to censor, remove, and ban users and comments that are not all out direct threats to commit criminal acts or spam. What is going on on Reddit in particular is a thoroughly liberal authoritarianism that is heavily dominated by a kind of perverse paternalistic supremacist, i.e., protecting users from hearing and seeing things that the authoritarian types deem unauthorized. Reddit, as example, is intended to allow the community, through a kind of civil society, determine the dialogue and conversation; but with ever spiking frequency, Reddit in particular is being sabotaged as the authoritarians remove the community's ability to shape the conversation. The mods on Reddit in particular are thoroughly acting as common authoritarian goons by patrolling the discussions and routinely removing comments and conversations they decree as unauthorized or very much like "speaking against the regime". It's clearly an authoritarian mentality eating its way through Reddit at the moment. Sure, some will say "private website, blah blah blah" but that's not the point really. It's about civil responsibility, which, ironically, the liberal authoritarian goons on Reddit supposedly frequently espouse regarding all sorts of other topics. As the internet continues to be consolidated and shrinks and is ever more controlled by the likes of Facebook that is controlled by Zuckerberg, who's goal is for Facebook to replace the internet, you will have ever more increasingly controlled spaces for public discussions and at some point there will be no non-private spaces for discussion to any effective degree. At that point we have come full circle and devolved back to a monarchical and aristocratic type of social structure where all of society and it's people only operate in "private websites" and the justification is that because the ruling class control everything and all forms of communication, like Kings, Dukes, and Princes, you are claimed to have no right to have conversations. I know many, rather short sighted people may dismiss what I say, but reality is that is a rather counter-intuitive and unexpected manner, the internet is really leading to far more control and consolidation of power and homogenization of society and collapse of diversity. It's rather odd that large segments of society are all supportive of things that will end in demise of the very tings they espouse. In many ways, the current phase humanity is in with regard to neo-liberalist views, is akin to investment in a ponzi scheme. Everyone (liberal, tech, globalist, etc types) is all Golden Age level indulged in excess and self-gratification because they invested all their money in a ponzi scheme that has huge returns on paper, but the day will come when you can't withdraw the false returns or the scheme collapses altogether.

nitwit005 10y ago

I'm not so sure that countries will be all that enthused to follow China's example. Aside from the technical and infrastructure costs, it's evident that they're using a huge amount of human manpower. A lot of countries don't have the knowhow or billions to do it. At this point, I suspect the lesson will be to block all sites except those that force people to use their real names, and arrest them if they say something unapproved. Intimidation is pretty cheap.

whack 10y ago

To play devil's advocate: The US does also engages in censorship. Non-citizens are heavily restricted in the kind of political lobbying and contributions that they are allowed to make. We can argue about the distinction between political contributions/lobbying vs speech, but let's examine the intent behind the US laws: to limit the influence that foreign countries/organizations can have on domestic politics. One could credibly argue that Chinese censorship of the internet falls along the same vein. A completely open internet would immediately result in China being inundated by western perspectives and arguments. An inundation that would be disproportionate, simply due to the west's economic lead and online headstart. One can understand any non-western-aligned nation being concerned about its domestic politics being strongly influenced by the western-free-speech-megaphone. Overall, I still think that internet censorship does more harm than good, but it's worth considering the above.

tmptmp 10y ago

What bothers me more is the chilling silence on the issue of human rights violation carried out by the followers of communism [1],[2] by most of the intellectuals (mostly humanities professors) in USA who are very keen on criticizing USA for whatever perceived/projected censorship and violation of human rights. There is a huge possibility that these intellectuals are either crooks who have been paid and bought by the communists and/or are fools ("useful idiots")[3] who believe in the communist propaganda. For every criticism dealt out against USA for human rights abuse and other governmental crimes/sins, the communist nations must be criticized a 1000 times. Communism as a ideology is still a great threat to world peace. The followers and believers of communism have wreaked havoc on various parts of the world that matches nothing and these crooks blame the free market based democratic western nations for problems in their own countries. I don't deny that capitalism has its disadvantages but it is by far the most humane, most successful and most benevolent government/societal system that has existed ever before whereas communism has resulted in extremely corrupt and very abusive government/societal systems in the world. The things like the communist party chairman, the politburo members, and a bunch of their cronies got the entire benefits in a very skewed manner whereas most of the general public got only hardship should not be forgotten at any cost by freedom lovers. So, we must not forget that the USA has served the world by taking a stance against this vicious ideology called communism and its equally vicious followers. We must raise this issue every time USA and capitalist free and open market based democracy gets criticized in favor of communism/socialism by the communists/socialists. Some links you may find interesting here [2], [3], [4]. [1] https://sentinelblog.com/2015/12/10/maos-monstrous-record-has-been-suppressed/ https://sentinelblog.com/2015/12/10/maos-monstrous-record-ha... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot [4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017839/Madman-starved-60-million-death-Devastating-book-reveals-Maos-megalomania-turned-China-madhouse.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017839/Madman-starv... [5] https://tiananmenstremendousachievements.wordpress.com/tag/maos-tyranny/ https://tiananmenstremendousachievements.wordpress.com/tag/m...