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China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
- donquichotte 9y agoIt is funny, just yesterday I read Victor Mair's reasoning why "n" might have been banned [1]: "This is probably out of fear on the part of the government that "N" = "n terms in office", where possibly n > 2; as in "liánrèn n jiè 连任n届" ("n successive terms in office"), which would be forbidden anyway because of the liánrèn 连任 ("continue in office") part." I don't know any Mandarin or Cantonese, but this seems like a very strange explanation to me. Are there any native speakers with more insight on this? [1] http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=36939 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=36939
- paradite 9y agoNative speaker here. My guess is that the censor is not "directly" banning letter "N", but rather, this was a result of some machine learning algorithm that recognizes "N" as part of phrases or sentences that have a high probability of containing other banned words. It is like query expansion in NLP, but in this case it has accidentally banned a word that is widely used in other context. Edit: This looks like a more reasonable explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16483061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16483061, N is the 14th letter in the alphabet, referring to the 14th item in the proposed changes [1] (the change that removes term limit). [1] (Chinese) http://www.xinhuanet.com/2018-02/25/c_1122451187.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/2018-02/25/c_1122451187.htm
- wscott 9y agoThis is the only believable explanation I have seen on this bizarre result. I kept looking to see if the article was from the Onion.
- Buldak 9y agoThis feels like satire. China censored a meme sufficiently obscure that people aren't even sure what it was?
- WhoIsSatoshi 9y agoTo me this feels way too real. People have to speak in 'codes' and 'memes' because they are already being ultra censored and controlled.... and the next level of it being the code or meme being censored.
- westiseast 9y agoThe most likely explanation that sprang to mind was that there’s a convention in Chinese for (young) people to say ‘n’ meaning ‘lots’. ie: A: Have you been to Disney? B: OMG, only like, n times! (A: 你去过迪斯尼吗？ B: 哎呀我去n次啦) edit: so i’m confirming Mair’s guess.
- random_name123 9y agoI'm pretty sure they're banning the letter N because it was the 14th "proclamation" in the recent posting about constitutional changes by Xinhua news. They tried to bury it under a set of 20~ changes and disguise the wording. First, 14 was banned on weibo. Then, N was banned as people quickly jumped to the 14th letter of the English alphabet. Weibo also has a history of doing stuff like this, Tiananmen Square is sometimes referred to as May 35th, so they like to play with numbers and their meanings.
- paradite 9y agoThis is a very convincing explanation and most likely the correct reason.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mnw21cam 9y agoWeb site claims I have an ad blocker, and refuses to show content.
- pirocks 9y agoThat's interesting, because I have an adblocker(ublock origin) and it works fine.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoAre you using 'N'etscape 'N'avigator by chance?
- 0xfeba 9y agoMaybe it meant you have a "nad blocker" but it doesn't show the n?
- ForRealsies 9y agoThe world is already a dystopian society. Why are the Chinese putting up with this? Are their values that different than Western civilization?
- zoltaan 9y agoWhat a _o_se_se!
- pjc50 9y agoI'm reminded of https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6ab5y7/did_greece_really_ban_the_letter_z/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6ab5y7/did_g...
- brlewis 9y agoHeadline should be: Chia baed letter from iteret after people used it to attack Xi Jipig
- dep_b 9y agoIt should be called a "headlie" as well, which could be a more fitting word for it anyway depending on which news outlet you visit.
- olympus 9y agoGovernment censorship is no fun, but the best part about this article for me was learning that Xi Jinping is sometimes compared to Winnie the Pooh. The comparison picture is dead on. https://twitter.com/vinayak_jain/status/899886641157783553 https://twitter.com/vinayak_jain/status/899886641157783553
- netsharc 9y agoThis one's so much better: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/07/17/15/426A9E1500000578-4702522-And_in_2015_a_picture_of_Xi_standing_up_through_the_roof_of_a_pa-a-4_1500300034377.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/07/17/15/426A9E150000057...
- mabbo 9y agoThe really scary part of that article is the screenshot of Weibo with every message censored automatically with "content is illegal". If you think this sort of thing could never happen in the west, I think you're underestimating how quickly it could happen. The constitutions and bills of rights of any country are not laws of nature that can't be broken- they're words on paper that governments or populist movements can easily ignore. Consider any politician you disagree with deeply and ask yourself: if they could ban dissent from their views, wouldn't they?
- maeln 9y agoIt is already happening. In France some website are already censored and send you to a website of the Interior affairs Minister. Some are also "shadow-banned" (the default DNS of the ISP return nothing), like the pirate bay (but I think it depends on your ISP).
- arnaud12 9y agoAre you seriously comparing freedom of speech in France and China?
- FrozenTuna 9y agoIs there something seriously wrong with that? The whole argument people here are trying to make is how quickly freedom of speech can erode. In that context, it is absolutely apples to apples when you compare freedom of speech in US, France, Germany, China, wherever.
- nimbius 9y agoThis kind of chicanery shows up at every point in monarchical rule...one would have anticipated it to be a bit more delayed in this case given how recent the abolition of the term limit has been Term limits are a check-and-balance against this sort of silliness. The divine inspiration cited by George W Bush for example to invade the middle east was no guarantee that the US would continue the practice of seeking holy affirmation to invade a country. Abolition of the term limit disrupts international confidence in a parties ability to advance domestic and foreign policy as now, you've pinned yourself to a single dependency in the government.
- jlebrech 9y agograffiti artists are now even less likely to get caught.
- nkkollaw 9y agoSo, hold on--they can't write "China"..?
- NullPrefix 9y ago中國
- nkkollaw 9y agoWhat's that
- blfr 9y agoI remember Steam mods removing posts containing and even banning people for posting "WE" because it was part of a "WE WUZ KANGZ" meme phrase. https://www.reddit.com/r/Drama/comments/6wocla/assassins_creed_origins_steam_forums_completely/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Drama/comments/6wocla/assassins_cre... There's something about censorship that always makes it turn ridiculous in the end.
- estomagordo 9y agoI get it, freedom of speech is important yadda-yadda, but this is hilarious.