7 ms·

I find WeChat and its aggressively centralized model fascinating, and something to keep eyes on, but this article falls into the familiar trap of playing a bit

by scilro 7y ago

I find WeChat and its aggressively centralized model fascinating, and something to keep eyes on, but this article falls into the familiar trap of playing a bit loose with the facts when it comes to how the Chinese government surveils its citizens. For example, this is from article: >People are regularly arrested for messages they send in supposedly “private” group chats. In 2017, two people were arrested in Nanjing for separate instances of making satirical comments referring the massacre in the city by the Japanese in 1937.5 But if you read the original source: http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001901/more-nanjing-massacre-miscreants-detained-by-police http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001901/more-nanjing-massacre-... >“Nanjing is a pit,” Wang wrote. “We should let the Japanese come slaughter again.” Local police were alerted to the incident after screenshots of Wang’s messages were circulated on social media, and they arrested him two days later. Clearly, a bit of a different story than what's implied in this article. I can easily see someone being questioned by police in almost any country if screenshots leaked where they joked about repeating a violent historical atrocity, like 9/11 for example. It's not clear to me why folks tend to advance the notion that Chinese citizens are under constant 1984-style 24/7 surveillance by their government. That's not quite how it works over there, at least, if people who live and work there are to be trusted.

noja 7y ago
It depends who distributed the screenshots.
- deathhand 7y ago
  In case anyone doesn't know about Parallel construction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- yorwba 7y ago
  Probably one of the 314 other people in the group felt offended.
  - beenBoutIT 7y ago
    The go-to in that type of situation is "Jail them".
gbrown 7y ago
Not everyone has to actually be constantly surveiled for the effects to be the same, a-la panopticon.
- scilro 7y ago
  Absolutely, and to me this is a more reasonable framework to understand how technology-enabled surveillance works in China and elsewhere.
Allower 7y ago
Are you seriously that naive?!
ssnistfajen 7y ago
>It's not clear to me why folks tend to advance the notion that Chinese citizens are under constant 1984-style 24/7 surveillance by their government. Because that gets readers to click the article. They don't care how anything actually works. Complex and nuanced analysis of sociopolitical issues does not make for sensational copy. When the boogeyman is the right one, people will believe anything said about it and swallow the story whole without question.
beenBoutIT 7y ago
The Japan that raped Nanjing hasn't existed for decades, the comment is extremely offensive but can't be taken literally. This is the Chinese equivalent of an Israeli telling a Hitler joke, insensitive and offensive but not taken literally because the bad guy is long dead.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Japan has repeatedly refused to apologize or even admit such atrocities occurred. It further fuels the fire. They've even edited their textbooks to gloss over the fact.
  - Avamander 7y ago
    Nice whataboutism, so what the Japanese censor their books? Doesn't make it okay that the guy was jailed for that.
artificial 7y ago
>It's not clear to me why folks tend to advance the notion that Chinese citizens are under constant 1984-style 24/7 surveillance by their government. That's not quite how it works over there, at least, if people who live and work there are to be trusted. There are a number of stories about surveillance over the years. [0] Here's one about a BBC reporter who was found in 7 minutes using their CC system. The situation with the [1] Ugyhurs and crack down on Muslims. Also the [2] Social Credit system which is tied into a number of difference services. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/13/china-cctv-bbc-reporter/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/13/china-cctv-bbc-reporter/ [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/china-surveillance-xinjiang.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/china-surveill... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7UKYUTke58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7UKYUTke58
zachguo 7y ago
I'm fed up with those people who think they understand China simply because they have read a sci-fi novel written by an Englishman before modern China has been founded. China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state.
- sirmike_ 7y ago
  > China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state. No. China is not free. I am sorry you are fed up. But I bet millions of victims of Chinese oppression are in much dire condition and wish they could be fed up and not dead or disappeared. Xi Jinping is a dope. The amount of articulation of control China has over the its citizens is chilling. Defending China, Fuck the Chinese govt. I can say that and face zero repercussions, publically. You cannot say that in China and expect to be ok. I hope the Chinese people rise up one day and figure out a better form of governance for themselves.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    I think you misunderstand. China is not a heavy-handed police state not because everyone is perfectly free, but because not everyone is unfree. The police simply isn't equipped to oppress everyone, so it only hits an unlucky minority. It's just that in China minorities can comprise millions of people. So while in the worst case you might be executed and have your organs harvested, in the average case you'll not even be paid attention to. For example, when I lived in China my landlord violated several regulations on minimum unit size and fire safety, forged documents to hide this and probably also didn't pay any taxes on the rent I paid in cash. One day there was a notice by the police posted to the door, announcing that they'd come investigate. Some time later I got a message from my landlord warning me and the other tenants not to open the door. The police never came. I assume he either paid them off with a bribe or they were simply too lazy to follow up on their threat. If China is a police state, then it's one where the police doesn't take their job very seriously.
    - badpun 7y ago
      Police state is more concerned with „crime” of subverting the ruling regime, not all crimes in general. See Stazi, with their absolutely vast network of informers - they too didn’t care if you avoided taxes or broke tenant laws.
Causality1 7y ago
You realize Americans joke about 9/11 on the internet all the time, right? You can go to YouTube right now and find 9/11 meme compilations. Point aside, "we should come let them do it again" is a radically different statement than "I'm going to do what they did". The former is a complaint; the latter is a threat.
- scilro 7y ago
  Of course I realize that, but America's free speech protections are the exception and not the rule. (Not making a value judgment here)
Jedi72 7y ago
Damn, I sure hope nobody screenshots this or I wont be able to fly a plane into the Sydney Opera house like I'm planning to do next week.
danShumway 7y ago
> Clearly, a bit of a different story than what's implied in this article. Is it? I would classify both of those as satirical comments (albeit offensive ones). I'm not sure how familiar you are with the US, but it would not be considered socially acceptable here for the police to question you about comments like this made in, say, a private Facebook message. It definitely would not be acceptable for police in the US to arrest someone over this; that would be a very clear 1st Amendment violation.
- tepidandroid 7y ago
  You wouldn’t satirize the Nanjing massacre in China in the same way you wouldn’t satirize the Holocaust in Germany.
  - kristianov 7y ago
    Well, on youtube, Holocaust jokes were done by Larry David, Norm McDonald, Sarah Silverman...
    - sapilla 7y ago
      I admire their vascular health, those jokes are hard on the heart.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Again, different cultures. In the US, this kind of satire is legal. Despicable, but legal. If Facebook leaked a private message of this nature to the police in the US, Facebook (or whomever contacted the police) would be criticized as well. Banned from the platform? Go right ahead. Involve law enforcement? There would be a lot of criticism for that. Regardless, it still seems to me that the reporting in this article seems accurate: > People are regularly arrested for messages they send in supposedly “private” group chats. In 2017, two people were arrested in Nanjing for separate instances of making satirical comments referring the massacre in the city by the Japanese in 1937.5 I'm seeing arguments that this is reasonable, I'm not seeing arguments that this didn't happen. The conflict seems to be that different cultures have different attitudes towards inflicting legal repercussions on private hate speech.
meowface 7y ago
Just because that particular example was misreported doesn't necessarily mean surveillance of WeChat private messages isn't occurring.

by scilro 7y ago

noja 7y ago

It depends who distributed the screenshots.

deathhand 7y ago
In case anyone doesn't know about Parallel construction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
yorwba 7y ago
Probably one of the 314 other people in the group felt offended.
- beenBoutIT 7y ago
  The go-to in that type of situation is "Jail them".

gbrown 7y ago

Not everyone has to actually be constantly surveiled for the effects to be the same, a-la panopticon.

scilro 7y ago
Absolutely, and to me this is a more reasonable framework to understand how technology-enabled surveillance works in China and elsewhere.

Allower 7y ago

Are you seriously that naive?!

ssnistfajen 7y ago

>It's not clear to me why folks tend to advance the notion that Chinese citizens are under constant 1984-style 24/7 surveillance by their government. Because that gets readers to click the article. They don't care how anything actually works. Complex and nuanced analysis of sociopolitical issues does not make for sensational copy. When the boogeyman is the right one, people will believe anything said about it and swallow the story whole without question.

beenBoutIT 7y ago

The Japan that raped Nanjing hasn't existed for decades, the comment is extremely offensive but can't be taken literally. This is the Chinese equivalent of an Israeli telling a Hitler joke, insensitive and offensive but not taken literally because the bad guy is long dead.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Japan has repeatedly refused to apologize or even admit such atrocities occurred. It further fuels the fire. They've even edited their textbooks to gloss over the fact.
- Avamander 7y ago
  Nice whataboutism, so what the Japanese censor their books? Doesn't make it okay that the guy was jailed for that.

artificial 7y ago

>It's not clear to me why folks tend to advance the notion that Chinese citizens are under constant 1984-style 24/7 surveillance by their government. That's not quite how it works over there, at least, if people who live and work there are to be trusted. There are a number of stories about surveillance over the years. [0] Here's one about a BBC reporter who was found in 7 minutes using their CC system. The situation with the [1] Ugyhurs and crack down on Muslims. Also the [2] Social Credit system which is tied into a number of difference services. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/13/china-cctv-bbc-reporter/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/13/china-cctv-bbc-reporter/ [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/china-surveillance-xinjiang.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/china-surveill... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7UKYUTke58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7UKYUTke58

zachguo 7y ago

I'm fed up with those people who think they understand China simply because they have read a sci-fi novel written by an Englishman before modern China has been founded. China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state.

sirmike_ 7y ago
> China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state. No. China is not free. I am sorry you are fed up. But I bet millions of victims of Chinese oppression are in much dire condition and wish they could be fed up and not dead or disappeared. Xi Jinping is a dope. The amount of articulation of control China has over the its citizens is chilling. Defending China, Fuck the Chinese govt. I can say that and face zero repercussions, publically. You cannot say that in China and expect to be ok. I hope the Chinese people rise up one day and figure out a better form of governance for themselves.
- yorwba 7y ago
  I think you misunderstand. China is not a heavy-handed police state not because everyone is perfectly free, but because not everyone is unfree. The police simply isn't equipped to oppress everyone, so it only hits an unlucky minority. It's just that in China minorities can comprise millions of people. So while in the worst case you might be executed and have your organs harvested, in the average case you'll not even be paid attention to. For example, when I lived in China my landlord violated several regulations on minimum unit size and fire safety, forged documents to hide this and probably also didn't pay any taxes on the rent I paid in cash. One day there was a notice by the police posted to the door, announcing that they'd come investigate. Some time later I got a message from my landlord warning me and the other tenants not to open the door. The police never came. I assume he either paid them off with a bribe or they were simply too lazy to follow up on their threat. If China is a police state, then it's one where the police doesn't take their job very seriously.
  - badpun 7y ago
    Police state is more concerned with „crime” of subverting the ruling regime, not all crimes in general. See Stazi, with their absolutely vast network of informers - they too didn’t care if you avoided taxes or broke tenant laws.

Causality1 7y ago

You realize Americans joke about 9/11 on the internet all the time, right? You can go to YouTube right now and find 9/11 meme compilations. Point aside, "we should come let them do it again" is a radically different statement than "I'm going to do what they did". The former is a complaint; the latter is a threat.

scilro 7y ago
Of course I realize that, but America's free speech protections are the exception and not the rule. (Not making a value judgment here)

Jedi72 7y ago

Damn, I sure hope nobody screenshots this or I wont be able to fly a plane into the Sydney Opera house like I'm planning to do next week.

danShumway 7y ago

> Clearly, a bit of a different story than what's implied in this article. Is it? I would classify both of those as satirical comments (albeit offensive ones). I'm not sure how familiar you are with the US, but it would not be considered socially acceptable here for the police to question you about comments like this made in, say, a private Facebook message. It definitely would not be acceptable for police in the US to arrest someone over this; that would be a very clear 1st Amendment violation.

tepidandroid 7y ago
You wouldn’t satirize the Nanjing massacre in China in the same way you wouldn’t satirize the Holocaust in Germany.
- kristianov 7y ago
  Well, on youtube, Holocaust jokes were done by Larry David, Norm McDonald, Sarah Silverman...
  - sapilla 7y ago
    I admire their vascular health, those jokes are hard on the heart.
- danShumway 7y ago
  Again, different cultures. In the US, this kind of satire is legal. Despicable, but legal. If Facebook leaked a private message of this nature to the police in the US, Facebook (or whomever contacted the police) would be criticized as well. Banned from the platform? Go right ahead. Involve law enforcement? There would be a lot of criticism for that. Regardless, it still seems to me that the reporting in this article seems accurate: > People are regularly arrested for messages they send in supposedly “private” group chats. In 2017, two people were arrested in Nanjing for separate instances of making satirical comments referring the massacre in the city by the Japanese in 1937.5 I'm seeing arguments that this is reasonable, I'm not seeing arguments that this didn't happen. The conflict seems to be that different cultures have different attitudes towards inflicting legal repercussions on private hate speech.

meowface 7y ago

Just because that particular example was misreported doesn't necessarily mean surveillance of WeChat private messages isn't occurring.