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As much as its fashionable to hate on China and its government, it's important to understand that Foreign government social manipulation of citizen and instigat

by pavs 8y ago

As much as its fashionable to hate on China and its government, it's important to understand that Foreign government social manipulation of citizen and instigate chaos is real and it's not limited to US or western countries or only through the internet. As someone who owns and runs an ISP, I see governments in many countries, through my peers in the industry, (including developed, developing and poor countries), go through great lengths to tighten the screws on the internet in their respective countries. While very few countries do it as intrusively as China - most countries do it at some intrusive degrees, with laws and regulations. Political destabilizing through the internet is a real thing and has been for many years and as more companies rely heavily on the internet for their business - stability of the internet infrastructure is very much tied to individual countries economic health and faith. Does China go too far in regulating their internet? Most probably yes. Is China's internet policy completely unreasonable on unfounded security grounds? Abso-fucking-lutely not. The problem is no one really knows what the middle ground between the openness of the internet and policing it just the right amount. So we end up with an extreme case like China.

deleted 8y ago
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JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Political destabilizing through the internet is a real thing and has been for many years and as more companies rely heavily on the internet for their business This argument would hold water if China's Internet policies were unique to telecom. They're not. The same instruments which protected Baidu and Tencent promote local steelmakers, phone makers, car manufacturers, battery and solar panel manufacturers and every other industry with a Princeling [1] attached. > As much as its fashionable to hate on China and its government Putting this at the end because it's a semantic comment. This is a silly way to attempt to dismiss a valid argument. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princelings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princelings
- pavs 8y ago
  > This argument would hold water if China's Internet policies were unique to telecom. They're not. The same instruments which protected Baidu and Tencent promote local steelmakers, phone makers, car manufacturers, battery and solar panel manufacturers and every other industry with a Princeling [1] attached. For the most part the country is economically and socially stable and improving at rapid pace. Yes the country has its share of problems, but name me one country, democratic, developed or otherwise that doesnt have their share of problems. The American/Western exceptionalism attitude towards other countries is kinda nauseatic. China is not going around rigging pro-western government democratic countries election. Funding uprising and waging wars directly or directly (at least not at the scale USA is). Russia tried openning up their country and we know what happened to them, China may one day become more open but can't really blame them for being sceptical of the rest of the world.
  - sdwa 8y ago
    >The American/Western exceptionalism attitude towards other countries is kinda nauseatic. So too is the "everyone's on aggregate just as bad as each other and everything is the same" equivocating approach to evaluating different countries and their systems. >For the most part the country is economically and socially stable and improving at rapid pace. Yes the country has its share of problems, but name me one country, democratic, developed or otherwise that doesnt have their share of problems. Nobody is saying Western countries are perfect. We just have the confidence in liberal democracy to at least say it is at least vastly superior to the dystopia China currently is. To say "China is improving at a rapid pace" is myopic. If you only care about economic development, then you are right, but if you care about civil liberties and human rights, then you could not be more wrong.
- andybak 8y ago
  As an aside: > it's a semantic comment. Is this correct usage? I read that as "it's a meaningful comment" which seems opposite to the intended use.

by pavs 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> Political destabilizing through the internet is a real thing and has been for many years and as more companies rely heavily on the internet for their business This argument would hold water if China's Internet policies were unique to telecom. They're not. The same instruments which protected Baidu and Tencent promote local steelmakers, phone makers, car manufacturers, battery and solar panel manufacturers and every other industry with a Princeling [1] attached. > As much as its fashionable to hate on China and its government Putting this at the end because it's a semantic comment. This is a silly way to attempt to dismiss a valid argument. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princelings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princelings

pavs 8y ago
> This argument would hold water if China's Internet policies were unique to telecom. They're not. The same instruments which protected Baidu and Tencent promote local steelmakers, phone makers, car manufacturers, battery and solar panel manufacturers and every other industry with a Princeling [1] attached. For the most part the country is economically and socially stable and improving at rapid pace. Yes the country has its share of problems, but name me one country, democratic, developed or otherwise that doesnt have their share of problems. The American/Western exceptionalism attitude towards other countries is kinda nauseatic. China is not going around rigging pro-western government democratic countries election. Funding uprising and waging wars directly or directly (at least not at the scale USA is). Russia tried openning up their country and we know what happened to them, China may one day become more open but can't really blame them for being sceptical of the rest of the world.
- sdwa 8y ago
  >The American/Western exceptionalism attitude towards other countries is kinda nauseatic. So too is the "everyone's on aggregate just as bad as each other and everything is the same" equivocating approach to evaluating different countries and their systems. >For the most part the country is economically and socially stable and improving at rapid pace. Yes the country has its share of problems, but name me one country, democratic, developed or otherwise that doesnt have their share of problems. Nobody is saying Western countries are perfect. We just have the confidence in liberal democracy to at least say it is at least vastly superior to the dystopia China currently is. To say "China is improving at a rapid pace" is myopic. If you only care about economic development, then you are right, but if you care about civil liberties and human rights, then you could not be more wrong.
andybak 8y ago
As an aside: > it's a semantic comment. Is this correct usage? I read that as "it's a meaningful comment" which seems opposite to the intended use.