7 ms·

So half of the students were randomly given a free VPN connection. They were informed that their browsing activities through the VPN would be monitored for the

So half of the students were randomly given a free VPN connection. They were informed that their browsing activities through the VPN would be monitored for the study. This seems a poor study to draw conclusions about the demand for uncensored information. The censorship regime must have a hugely chilling effect. No-one wants to get sent to a re-education camp or have their social credit score crater. Why would a rational person run the risk of those consequences? And if they were to learn the extent of their government's manipulation of their reality, what are they supposed to do with that information? The study says there were low rates of the participant's roommate learning censored information. If I'd been peeking at information I knew could harm my career and freedom, why on earth would I tell people about it? To me, what this study is really saying is that internet censorship is not just a technological process, it's also a social process.

theseadroid 7y ago
It is more than a social process. One day I'll translate this article into English: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E5%B9%B4%E5%B8%9D%E5%90%A7%E5%87%BA%E5%BE%81%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E5%B9%B4%E5%B8%9D%E5%90%A... The gist of it is in 2016 January, many mainland Chinese VPNed onto Facebook to post curses on Taiwan politicians who support Taiwan independence. It's not a big event but it's funny they VPNed out to do that. Also from my personal experience many oversea Chinese students, and first generation immigrants, many of whom tech workers, among which many of them working for FANNG, dont consider censorship a big deal.
- throwaway_9cc8 7y ago
  A couple thoughts - assuming you are American: 1) The Facebook campaign is: a) cowardly on the government's part - why don't they just open up the GFW for a month and see what happens? b) somewhat expected even if done by real people out of their own initiative - what do you expect if Long Island decided to go independent? Obviously not equivalent but hopefully you get the idea. c) Censorship is a big deal to some or most of my best friends - but if it is, would they trust you enough to talk about it, especially given that it is a big deal, they still have family and friends at home, and the government has gone to some length to strengthen it? To be clear I appreciate your comment and yes, that article is an interesting historical event that is worthy of an article on Wikipedia.
  - theseadroid 7y ago
    Am Chinese. See my profile and past comments. Shot me an email if you like. Let’s chat more :)
dheera 7y ago
You won't get sent to a camp or get arrested for personally using a VPN. People do it all the time, and for work, including for reasons the government would consider okay. You may be investigated, however, if you use it to organize political activity or spread censored information to others. China is a place where intent carries huge weight in determining whether or not something is legally enforced.
- deathhand 7y ago
  spread information to others So only consume - not produce?
  - dheera 7y ago
    It's not about the words. If you are taking information about the Tiananmen incident and cross-posting to Chinese websites that's a no-no. If you are just going on Facebook to catch up with your friends from your college studies, or an investor reading about new tech in the US, or just bored and reading about goofy pirates on Wikipedia, or accessing academic papers on Google, or a manufacturer using a banned IM service to negotiate deals with your customers, they won't give a crap. It is the intent that matters, not your actions. Hell, you can translate all the awesome startups on TechCrunch into Chinese and distribute it internally, that's also okay, just leave out anything about the HK protests and you'll be fine.
    - atomi 7y ago
      The truth is more dystopian. Maybe, TechCrunch or Wikipedia are fine today - but not tomorrow. It's all made up to serve the party.
      - dheera 7y ago
        The "party" isn't one evil Orwellian entity that goes around terrorizing people. They are also responsible for a massive high speed rail network, taking down coal plants in favor of clean energy, curbing gas cars on the roads, building huge amounts of schools, and lots of other things. Trump does some dystopian things as well -- it doesn't mean the entire US government is bad, and it doesn't mean the entire Republican party is bad, either. I'm not defending the dystopian things done in China -- I hate those things, like internet censorship, and extending Xi's term of office -- but "made up to serve the party" isn't exactly what's behind the scenes here. Rather, consider that some of their main goals right now are (a) stability (b) public safety (c) fighting corruption (d) maintaining economic power (e) supporting and balancing the resource necessities of 1.3 billion people. They chose a certain approach to achieving those goals. The current approach may be highly disputable and there are lots of things that should be done differently in my opinion, and very likely your opinion as well. But China isn't North Korea. This stuff isn't exactly designed to "serve" president Xi or the party and if you think people are being forced to bow down to him like Kim Jong Un you have the wrong picture.
admk 7y ago
It is puzzling to me why foreigners would actually believe that we are somehow inflicted by the "social credit score" and worry about being sent to a "re-education camp" for simply circumventing the censorship. I work in a research institute that is government-sponsored, and I can assure you that our work relies on having access to censored foreign sites (Google, Google Scholar, etc.), and there isn't an official way to do so and we all use third-party or self-hosted VPNs. All my friends and families always discuss incidents in the past history of PRC freely, and never have to worry about being surveilled. It has recently bothered me that the western media often see the issues in colored lenses, have strong beliefs in anti-China sentiments and yet provide no direct evidence relating to the claimed atrocities commited by the government. I tried very hard to find actual direct evidence and to justify their claims (e.g. [1]) but discovered none. The lack of evidence make those hard to believe and would urge you to take those with a substantial grain of salt, and not everything is abysmal in China. Conflict of interest: I am a Chinese and I studied in the UK for 8 years. [1]: https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/China-Tribunal-SUMMARY-JUDGMENT_FINAL.pdf https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/China-T...
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  So by forcing the use of illegal vpns, you can always be arrested. Or fired for not doing your job. It's not that everything is terrible in China, it's that the Chinese government is an oppressive regime with severe totalitarian bent. Those oppressive regimes which least interfere in the everyday are the most likely to continue existing - we've known this since ancient times. But censorship, ethnic camps, totalitarian power and mass surveillance do a reppressive regime make.
  - admk 7y ago
    There are a few cases when it comes to arrests of VPN service owners, but zero incidents that I know of of VPN user being arrested. This is simply because the former breaks the law and the latter doesn't. Censorship is no secret, totalitarian power is hard to define, but ethnic camps and mass surveillance may or may not exist depending on the existance of direct evidence. Edit: Evidence is universal, and I suppose we can all agree that it is not dependent on me.

theseadroid 7y ago

It is more than a social process. One day I'll translate this article into English: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E5%B9%B4%E5%B8%9D%E5%90%A7%E5%87%BA%E5%BE%81%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E5%B9%B4%E5%B8%9D%E5%90%A... The gist of it is in 2016 January, many mainland Chinese VPNed onto Facebook to post curses on Taiwan politicians who support Taiwan independence. It's not a big event but it's funny they VPNed out to do that. Also from my personal experience many oversea Chinese students, and first generation immigrants, many of whom tech workers, among which many of them working for FANNG, dont consider censorship a big deal.

throwaway_9cc8 7y ago
A couple thoughts - assuming you are American: 1) The Facebook campaign is: a) cowardly on the government's part - why don't they just open up the GFW for a month and see what happens? b) somewhat expected even if done by real people out of their own initiative - what do you expect if Long Island decided to go independent? Obviously not equivalent but hopefully you get the idea. c) Censorship is a big deal to some or most of my best friends - but if it is, would they trust you enough to talk about it, especially given that it is a big deal, they still have family and friends at home, and the government has gone to some length to strengthen it? To be clear I appreciate your comment and yes, that article is an interesting historical event that is worthy of an article on Wikipedia.
- theseadroid 7y ago
  Am Chinese. See my profile and past comments. Shot me an email if you like. Let’s chat more :)

dheera 7y ago

You won't get sent to a camp or get arrested for personally using a VPN. People do it all the time, and for work, including for reasons the government would consider okay. You may be investigated, however, if you use it to organize political activity or spread censored information to others. China is a place where intent carries huge weight in determining whether or not something is legally enforced.

deathhand 7y ago
spread information to others So only consume - not produce?
- dheera 7y ago
  It's not about the words. If you are taking information about the Tiananmen incident and cross-posting to Chinese websites that's a no-no. If you are just going on Facebook to catch up with your friends from your college studies, or an investor reading about new tech in the US, or just bored and reading about goofy pirates on Wikipedia, or accessing academic papers on Google, or a manufacturer using a banned IM service to negotiate deals with your customers, they won't give a crap. It is the intent that matters, not your actions. Hell, you can translate all the awesome startups on TechCrunch into Chinese and distribute it internally, that's also okay, just leave out anything about the HK protests and you'll be fine.
  - atomi 7y ago
    The truth is more dystopian. Maybe, TechCrunch or Wikipedia are fine today - but not tomorrow. It's all made up to serve the party.
    - dheera 7y ago
      The "party" isn't one evil Orwellian entity that goes around terrorizing people. They are also responsible for a massive high speed rail network, taking down coal plants in favor of clean energy, curbing gas cars on the roads, building huge amounts of schools, and lots of other things. Trump does some dystopian things as well -- it doesn't mean the entire US government is bad, and it doesn't mean the entire Republican party is bad, either. I'm not defending the dystopian things done in China -- I hate those things, like internet censorship, and extending Xi's term of office -- but "made up to serve the party" isn't exactly what's behind the scenes here. Rather, consider that some of their main goals right now are (a) stability (b) public safety (c) fighting corruption (d) maintaining economic power (e) supporting and balancing the resource necessities of 1.3 billion people. They chose a certain approach to achieving those goals. The current approach may be highly disputable and there are lots of things that should be done differently in my opinion, and very likely your opinion as well. But China isn't North Korea. This stuff isn't exactly designed to "serve" president Xi or the party and if you think people are being forced to bow down to him like Kim Jong Un you have the wrong picture.

admk 7y ago

It is puzzling to me why foreigners would actually believe that we are somehow inflicted by the "social credit score" and worry about being sent to a "re-education camp" for simply circumventing the censorship. I work in a research institute that is government-sponsored, and I can assure you that our work relies on having access to censored foreign sites (Google, Google Scholar, etc.), and there isn't an official way to do so and we all use third-party or self-hosted VPNs. All my friends and families always discuss incidents in the past history of PRC freely, and never have to worry about being surveilled. It has recently bothered me that the western media often see the issues in colored lenses, have strong beliefs in anti-China sentiments and yet provide no direct evidence relating to the claimed atrocities commited by the government. I tried very hard to find actual direct evidence and to justify their claims (e.g. [1]) but discovered none. The lack of evidence make those hard to believe and would urge you to take those with a substantial grain of salt, and not everything is abysmal in China. Conflict of interest: I am a Chinese and I studied in the UK for 8 years. [1]: https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/China-Tribunal-SUMMARY-JUDGMENT_FINAL.pdf https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/China-T...

vorpalhex 7y ago
So by forcing the use of illegal vpns, you can always be arrested. Or fired for not doing your job. It's not that everything is terrible in China, it's that the Chinese government is an oppressive regime with severe totalitarian bent. Those oppressive regimes which least interfere in the everyday are the most likely to continue existing - we've known this since ancient times. But censorship, ethnic camps, totalitarian power and mass surveillance do a reppressive regime make.
- admk 7y ago
  There are a few cases when it comes to arrests of VPN service owners, but zero incidents that I know of of VPN user being arrested. This is simply because the former breaks the law and the latter doesn't. Censorship is no secret, totalitarian power is hard to define, but ethnic camps and mass surveillance may or may not exist depending on the existance of direct evidence. Edit: Evidence is universal, and I suppose we can all agree that it is not dependent on me.