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You're making a false equivalency between China and the West - it's a vast exaggeration to say it's "exactly the same shit" that's happening. There is absolute

by badsock 10y ago

You're making a false equivalency between China and the West - it's a vast exaggeration to say it's "exactly the same shit" that's happening. There is absolutely propaganda in the West, and there is censorship, but by any objective measure there is much, much more of it in China.

bogomipz 10y ago
If it exists in both places at an institutional level is not false equivalency. The west has no shortage of propaganda. media complicity, censorship, and legislation drafted up in the name of "national security." You yourself admitted as much. Please tell us by which objective measure are you referring to? You mention "by any objective measure.", please enumerate what those "any" are.
- badsock 10y ago
  Off the top of my head, the ability to run a web server without first getting approval from the government is a pretty obvious differenciator.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    So just that one criteria? Thats it? I believe you are referring to an ICP license which would is more regulatory/bureaucracy than anything else. You are also wrong, you can still put a web server without an ICP license. You won't go to jail for not having one nor does not having an ICP license mean you will automatically be censored . However if you want to have a large online presence then yes you will need to get an ICP license because hosting provider won't allow you to order rack or cages without one. You should read this. https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/chinese-icp-licensing-what-why-and-how-to-get-hosted-in-china--cms-23193 https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/chinese-icp-licensin... source: I worked for a CDN that put servers in China.
    - badsock 10y ago
      From your link: "All sites hosted on a server in the Chinese mainland must, by law, apply for and receive one of these babies [an ICP License] before their site goes live, a rule enforced at the hosting level." The West doesn't require websites to display their licence number in their footers. They don't require printing presses to be registered with the government. True there's widespread surveillance, but there's no official and intrusive "great firewall": encrypted connections aren't throttled, there isn't widespread use of proxies just to simply _access_ popular sites in other countries. You can use whatever VPN you like in the West. Western movies are routinely banned in China, whereas I can't find a single example of a Chinese movie being banned in the Western world. Are you seriously making the claim that censorship in the West is literally at the same level as it in China? Because that's all I've said isn't true. I'm not saying that the West doesn't censor or propagandize, I'm saying that it (at least so far) hasn't engaged in to the same degree. I'm as angry at the media and the government surveillance in the West as anyone, but hyperbole does nothing to further the debate.
      - bogomipz 10y ago
        "Are you seriously making the claim that censorship in the West is literally at the same level as it in China?" No I never made that claim, what I said was that the OPs post was not a false equivalence and that the west had no shortage of similar things done "in the name of national security." There was no hyperbole or any superlatives used in anything I wrote.
  - chopin 10y ago
    Try running a Tor exit node. Or a torrent site. At least in Europe that can earn you a visit by the police. We are not as free as we might think.
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      Yep, hat's happened in the U.S. as well.
balabaster 10y ago
If you don't think that exactly the same shit is happening in the West, you're just in denial. How do you know there is much much more of it China? Because the media said so? Because you know that first hand? Because... what? The West has some of the best hackers on the planet... you don't think at least some of them work for the establishment ensuring that you're well identified, tagged, understood, documented, tracked? Stop kidding yourself. You might think you're free, but you're just the product of the media you and your friends and family consume, echoing exactly what you've been conditioned to echo. Some of it is quite probably true fact. Much of it is probably some version of the truth you've been spoon fed since childhood. The rest is bullshit you've been fed in the hope that it'll continue to propagate the machine that keeps everyone towing the line. Are you really free? Do you know that for sure?
- badsock 10y ago
  Wait, I just realized I'm talking to one of the "wake up sheeple" types. Nevermind, carry on...
  - scrollaway 10y ago
    I mean, paranoia aside, he's not wrong. He's making horribly false equivalencies but that probably comes more from a lack of understanding of how bad the situation is in china, than a lack of understanding of the west.
    - balabaster 10y ago
      There's really very little paranoia. It's more like stoic cynicism. I don't waste my days looking over my shoulder thinking I'm being watched or wearing a tin-foil hat hiding from the Government. I'm just resigned to the fact that this is the way things are and eventually something innocuous I do is going to end up getting me questioned for a crime I was unaware I was complicit in. False equivalances? Hardly. China has a tough stance on censorship for control. The West really relies more on selective censorship and manipulation. They play the long game.
  - 10y ago

by badsock 10y ago

bogomipz 10y ago

If it exists in both places at an institutional level is not false equivalency. The west has no shortage of propaganda. media complicity, censorship, and legislation drafted up in the name of "national security." You yourself admitted as much. Please tell us by which objective measure are you referring to? You mention "by any objective measure.", please enumerate what those "any" are.

badsock 10y ago
Off the top of my head, the ability to run a web server without first getting approval from the government is a pretty obvious differenciator.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  So just that one criteria? Thats it? I believe you are referring to an ICP license which would is more regulatory/bureaucracy than anything else. You are also wrong, you can still put a web server without an ICP license. You won't go to jail for not having one nor does not having an ICP license mean you will automatically be censored . However if you want to have a large online presence then yes you will need to get an ICP license because hosting provider won't allow you to order rack or cages without one. You should read this. https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/chinese-icp-licensing-what-why-and-how-to-get-hosted-in-china--cms-23193 https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/chinese-icp-licensin... source: I worked for a CDN that put servers in China.
  - badsock 10y ago
    From your link: "All sites hosted on a server in the Chinese mainland must, by law, apply for and receive one of these babies [an ICP License] before their site goes live, a rule enforced at the hosting level." The West doesn't require websites to display their licence number in their footers. They don't require printing presses to be registered with the government. True there's widespread surveillance, but there's no official and intrusive "great firewall": encrypted connections aren't throttled, there isn't widespread use of proxies just to simply _access_ popular sites in other countries. You can use whatever VPN you like in the West. Western movies are routinely banned in China, whereas I can't find a single example of a Chinese movie being banned in the Western world. Are you seriously making the claim that censorship in the West is literally at the same level as it in China? Because that's all I've said isn't true. I'm not saying that the West doesn't censor or propagandize, I'm saying that it (at least so far) hasn't engaged in to the same degree. I'm as angry at the media and the government surveillance in the West as anyone, but hyperbole does nothing to further the debate.
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      "Are you seriously making the claim that censorship in the West is literally at the same level as it in China?" No I never made that claim, what I said was that the OPs post was not a false equivalence and that the west had no shortage of similar things done "in the name of national security." There was no hyperbole or any superlatives used in anything I wrote.
- chopin 10y ago
  Try running a Tor exit node. Or a torrent site. At least in Europe that can earn you a visit by the police. We are not as free as we might think.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    Yep, hat's happened in the U.S. as well.

balabaster 10y ago

If you don't think that exactly the same shit is happening in the West, you're just in denial. How do you know there is much much more of it China? Because the media said so? Because you know that first hand? Because... what? The West has some of the best hackers on the planet... you don't think at least some of them work for the establishment ensuring that you're well identified, tagged, understood, documented, tracked? Stop kidding yourself. You might think you're free, but you're just the product of the media you and your friends and family consume, echoing exactly what you've been conditioned to echo. Some of it is quite probably true fact. Much of it is probably some version of the truth you've been spoon fed since childhood. The rest is bullshit you've been fed in the hope that it'll continue to propagate the machine that keeps everyone towing the line. Are you really free? Do you know that for sure?

badsock 10y ago
Wait, I just realized I'm talking to one of the "wake up sheeple" types. Nevermind, carry on...
- scrollaway 10y ago
  I mean, paranoia aside, he's not wrong. He's making horribly false equivalencies but that probably comes more from a lack of understanding of how bad the situation is in china, than a lack of understanding of the west.
  - balabaster 10y ago
    There's really very little paranoia. It's more like stoic cynicism. I don't waste my days looking over my shoulder thinking I'm being watched or wearing a tin-foil hat hiding from the Government. I'm just resigned to the fact that this is the way things are and eventually something innocuous I do is going to end up getting me questioned for a crime I was unaware I was complicit in. False equivalances? Hardly. China has a tough stance on censorship for control. The West really relies more on selective censorship and manipulation. They play the long game.
- 10y ago