5 ms·

It'd be interesting to read if Chine has any good reasons for censorship. This is mostly likely a taboo question to ask in hacker communities but I wouldn't rul

by amasad 10y ago

It'd be interesting to read if Chine has any good reasons for censorship. This is mostly likely a taboo question to ask in hacker communities but I wouldn't rule out that there are good reasons for censoring. In fact, I have an anecdotal story about where censorship might make sense. In Jordan, we had Islamists subtly inciting jihad using online news outlets on benign things like Halloween parties. Calling them "satanist rituals" and in at least one case that incited violence against a group of people at a Halloween party. In the West free speech is better understood, however, it's not the case in many parts of the world. The concept might not even exist.

guscost 10y ago
Free speech doesn't work without lots of culture to support it. The enthusiastic defenses of free speech in the West are also intended to promote that culture (and claim that it can continue to coexist with free speech). If you have people organizing violence regularly using their freedom of speech, to the point where it is a serious problem, something of that culture has got to be missing. At least that's how I understand it.
seatonsanon 10y ago
In my opinion it's because China is a big target for Western propaganda. The truth is that Western nations are still quite sophisticated in how their propaganda is spread. You can see this with the type of colonial mentality that some Asian nations have, where they inherently believe that anything from the West is "better." It's quite insidious when you have a group of self-loathing people because they grew up feeling inferior. So I can definitely see why China wants to fight against this.
paradite 10y ago
I have commented on this issue several times here on HN. I have 3 main points on why censorship can be justified in the context of China: preventing spread of rumours, unique culture background which values stability more than anything else, and different stage of development as other countries hence different priorities. Here you can see my comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11405320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11405320 I wouldn't go into the realm of conspiracies where you have the Western propaganda deliberately destabilizing China for their strategic interests, since they are not backed up with facts.
- amasad 10y ago
  That's interesting but a bit too general, anything more concrete to read -- a book for example -- to understand what's "unique" and what "different priorities".
  - paradite 10y ago
    Here is an interesting piece of research on this topic: http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/censored.pdf?m=1447795312 http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/censored.pdf?m=14... Also, you can use Google Scholar to find those that you are interested: https://scholar.google.com.sg/scholar?hl=en&q=china+censorship&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp= https://scholar.google.com.sg/scholar?hl=en&q=china+censorsh...

by amasad 10y ago

guscost 10y ago

Free speech doesn't work without lots of culture to support it. The enthusiastic defenses of free speech in the West are also intended to promote that culture (and claim that it can continue to coexist with free speech). If you have people organizing violence regularly using their freedom of speech, to the point where it is a serious problem, something of that culture has got to be missing. At least that's how I understand it.

seatonsanon 10y ago

In my opinion it's because China is a big target for Western propaganda. The truth is that Western nations are still quite sophisticated in how their propaganda is spread. You can see this with the type of colonial mentality that some Asian nations have, where they inherently believe that anything from the West is "better." It's quite insidious when you have a group of self-loathing people because they grew up feeling inferior. So I can definitely see why China wants to fight against this.

paradite 10y ago

I have commented on this issue several times here on HN. I have 3 main points on why censorship can be justified in the context of China: preventing spread of rumours, unique culture background which values stability more than anything else, and different stage of development as other countries hence different priorities. Here you can see my comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11405320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11405320 I wouldn't go into the realm of conspiracies where you have the Western propaganda deliberately destabilizing China for their strategic interests, since they are not backed up with facts.

amasad 10y ago
That's interesting but a bit too general, anything more concrete to read -- a book for example -- to understand what's "unique" and what "different priorities".
- paradite 10y ago
  Here is an interesting piece of research on this topic: http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/censored.pdf?m=1447795312 http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/censored.pdf?m=14... Also, you can use Google Scholar to find those that you are interested: https://scholar.google.com.sg/scholar?hl=en&q=china+censorship&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp= https://scholar.google.com.sg/scholar?hl=en&q=china+censorsh...