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I once asked a Chinese citizen I was working with this question. The response was that it's important for the Chinese government to censor the internet for the

I once asked a Chinese citizen I was working with this question. The response was that it's important for the Chinese government to censor the internet for the masses because the masses are dumb and will believe anything they read. However it wasn't important to censor the internet for smart people because smart people aren't susceptible to harmful information. So when he was in the west on uncensored internet or at home using a VPN, that wasn't a problem for China because he's smart.

magicsmoke 6y ago
Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. Healthy discussion leads to good governance leads to wealth, power, and status. China believes freedom of speech is just a leaf on the tree. Wealth, power, and status are the roots of a society that can weather the chaos of dissent. Dissent is like a source of entertainment to keep people distracted to be sprinkled strategically where people are too well fed to uproot the system. So of course wealthy and tech savvy costal urbanites are given more leeway on censorship than a poor farmer in the interior.
- dgellow 6y ago
  > Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. That’s not the case for all western societies. Talking for the ones I’m the most familiar with, neither Germany, nor France, nor Switzerland is based on freedom of speech as the root of what is good and they have a good amount of legal and social rules regulating speech. As far as I’m aware only the US, and maybe British classic liberalism are that focused on freedom of speech as the most import concept. As a free speech advocate living in Europe I can tell you that’s not really something people embrace easily in that part of the world.
  - the8472 6y ago
    The free exchange of ideas is still held as enlightenment value. Having some limited exceptions to the rule does not negate that. The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. Freedom of thought and expression are articles in the charter of fundamental rights. Arguably the tradeoffs made when different fundamental rights conflict are different, but they're still held as fundamental rights.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      > The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. America has limits on free speech, but those aren't them. "shouting fire in a theater" came from a SCOTUS case about protesting the draft not being free speech; that was thankfully overturned decades ago. And America doesn't have hate speech laws like Europe. Libel/slander isn't protected though.
    - dgellow 6y ago
      My point is that you're talking about US specific concepts. But your initial comment was about "western societies" as if they are one bloc. I can tell that a bunch of so called western countries aren't that concerned protecting free exchange of ideas as soon as you start to make people feel uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is mostly a US obsession (not saying that's bad, I personally would like more of it in Europe), here we have whatever we consider to be reasonable and decent speech as a criteria for what is acceptable.
chadcmulligan 6y ago
ok wow, so brave new world, only the Alpha+ are allowed out. That won't go wrong.
sand_castles 6y ago
It is true though ! Apply the same logic to the US. Wouldn't it better to censor Fox ? since it has become Murdoch's personal propaganda machine. All it has done is harm social cohesion. It would be better to have Fox viewers go through some classes on critical thinking before allowing them to consume all sorts of Media that may be trying to manipulate them.
- catalogia 6y ago
  Aegrescit medendo.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  Isn't the trouble with that though you have to know beforehand what is correct? I think that is the advantage of free speech, you get to debate the issues in public, sure fox appears ridiculous to many, but there are many that agree with the fox arguments, I have learnt a lot about how other people think, and their point of view from following their positions (I'd like to think anyway). I feel that only by stressing a system can you build a stronger one, the current stressing has perhaps gone too far at the moment, but without the opposing forces of creation and destruction will anything new and stronger be created? That is the risk of creating something new I think - there's the risk of going to far, like its probably easier to just have a nice fixed hierarchy with everyone performing 100% efficiency in their assigned role, but is that the way to growth?
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  No, democracy is the only good ( but slow ) way. Fox News had a successful advantage in the start, but their cookie of right speech is not crumbling.. It's collapsing
  - andrekandre 6y ago
    > It's collapsing any evidence of that?
    - NicoJuicy 6y ago

magicsmoke 6y ago

Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. Healthy discussion leads to good governance leads to wealth, power, and status. China believes freedom of speech is just a leaf on the tree. Wealth, power, and status are the roots of a society that can weather the chaos of dissent. Dissent is like a source of entertainment to keep people distracted to be sprinkled strategically where people are too well fed to uproot the system. So of course wealthy and tech savvy costal urbanites are given more leeway on censorship than a poor farmer in the interior.

dgellow 6y ago
> Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. That’s not the case for all western societies. Talking for the ones I’m the most familiar with, neither Germany, nor France, nor Switzerland is based on freedom of speech as the root of what is good and they have a good amount of legal and social rules regulating speech. As far as I’m aware only the US, and maybe British classic liberalism are that focused on freedom of speech as the most import concept. As a free speech advocate living in Europe I can tell you that’s not really something people embrace easily in that part of the world.
- the8472 6y ago
  The free exchange of ideas is still held as enlightenment value. Having some limited exceptions to the rule does not negate that. The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. Freedom of thought and expression are articles in the charter of fundamental rights. Arguably the tradeoffs made when different fundamental rights conflict are different, but they're still held as fundamental rights.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    > The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. America has limits on free speech, but those aren't them. "shouting fire in a theater" came from a SCOTUS case about protesting the draft not being free speech; that was thankfully overturned decades ago. And America doesn't have hate speech laws like Europe. Libel/slander isn't protected though.
  - dgellow 6y ago
    My point is that you're talking about US specific concepts. But your initial comment was about "western societies" as if they are one bloc. I can tell that a bunch of so called western countries aren't that concerned protecting free exchange of ideas as soon as you start to make people feel uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is mostly a US obsession (not saying that's bad, I personally would like more of it in Europe), here we have whatever we consider to be reasonable and decent speech as a criteria for what is acceptable.

chadcmulligan 6y ago

ok wow, so brave new world, only the Alpha+ are allowed out. That won't go wrong.

sand_castles 6y ago

It is true though ! Apply the same logic to the US. Wouldn't it better to censor Fox ? since it has become Murdoch's personal propaganda machine. All it has done is harm social cohesion. It would be better to have Fox viewers go through some classes on critical thinking before allowing them to consume all sorts of Media that may be trying to manipulate them.

catalogia 6y ago
Aegrescit medendo.
chadcmulligan 6y ago
Isn't the trouble with that though you have to know beforehand what is correct? I think that is the advantage of free speech, you get to debate the issues in public, sure fox appears ridiculous to many, but there are many that agree with the fox arguments, I have learnt a lot about how other people think, and their point of view from following their positions (I'd like to think anyway). I feel that only by stressing a system can you build a stronger one, the current stressing has perhaps gone too far at the moment, but without the opposing forces of creation and destruction will anything new and stronger be created? That is the risk of creating something new I think - there's the risk of going to far, like its probably easier to just have a nice fixed hierarchy with everyone performing 100% efficiency in their assigned role, but is that the way to growth?
NicoJuicy 6y ago
No, democracy is the only good ( but slow ) way. Fox News had a successful advantage in the start, but their cookie of right speech is not crumbling.. It's collapsing
- andrekandre 6y ago
  > It's collapsing any evidence of that?
  - NicoJuicy 6y ago