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China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
- solmag 5y agoAmericans be like "our media is owned by these two large companies, we are freedom brave".
- systemvoltage 5y agoUS Gov doesn't prevent you from starting your own.
- ResearchCode 5y agoThe US Gov is effectively Google Facebook and they will shut you down or shadowban you under some pretense. As well as the politically protected duopoly Visa, Mastercard refusing payment processing. If Cloudflare even allows your site to stay up. You survive that, you also have to dodge secret police assassins and top politicians calling for your murder as with Assange and Wikileaks. But yes aside from that you are totally free to start your own media.
- systemvoltage 5y agoDamn, you’re making me think about all this consolidation.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- user_named 5y agoThis news story is off. Foreign entities have always been forbidden from engaging in media production and publishing in China. While the negative list is updated yearly, this isn't new.
- jollybean 5y agoThis is not a story of foreign capital, but private capital. Information is power, Xi wants 100% control over it. It's probably more important than controlling the Armed Forces in the long run. If you put people in a bubble only let them see what you want to see, it's pretty easy to control them, it doesn't matter who they are.
- eternalban 5y agoXi does not want power for himself. Xi wants power to remain in the hands of the party and CPC is laying the foundation of governance model for a robust state in the 21st century that also (TBD) does not inhibit economic and technological development. It is reasonable to argue against that goal (statist socialism) but imho superficial to frame this as yet another power grab by an individual. He is simply the tip of a consensus block in CPC. Historically, Xi represents the ‘adjustment of CPC to global conditions while maintaining continuity of the party’ post Nixon era re-engagement and re-evaluations.
- philliphaydon 5y agoIf Xi did not want power for himself he would not have removed the two-term limit to keep himself in power for life.
- ethbr0 5y agoBecause Communist countries tend to have very messy transfers of power, if not through continuity or annointment of a new leader by the old? And by messy I mean armed forces involvement and/or bodies in the streets.
- jollybean 5y agoChina has had a decent track record, they are well organized. If Xi truly believed in China, then he would make it a priority to facilitate a smooth transition of power, and to enable the leader after their ascension. I really don't think this is much of an excuse for him. The story is really simple - CCP wants to forbid any private control of information, that's it. It's not a new concept.
- Jensson 5y agoI wonder why people don't demand more non-profit news or why articles written by for-profit organizations are as trusted as they are. Why should people trust articles written by NyT over articles written by Google?
- osigurdson 5y agoI'm not sure we should demand non-profit or government funded media, but I do like the idea of media outlets being legally required to disclose any conflicts of interest or funding sources which may bias content one way or the other.
- roenxi 5y agoMost Americans don't seem to trust the press. Faith in "Mass Media" has plummeted to levels appropriate to their reliability on important issues [0]. And the media is a strange place. Something like Joe Rogan's podcast is realistically more mainstream and probably more trusted than most news programs. There will be many examples like that. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-med...
- gruez 5y ago>Something like Joe Rogan's podcast is realistically more mainstream and probably more trusted than most news programs How can you "trust" a podcast that just interviews everyone and takes them at face value? Do people seriously go "yeah I heard it on joe rogan so I think it's probably true"?
- ravenstine 5y agoYeah as much as I like Joe Rogan's show (or at least I did before it moved to Spotify), I never thought of it as something I "trusted", or even something that would be comparable to a news program. Maybe I trusted that it was less fake and not as staged as most news, but it's comparing apples to oranges. Also, I dispute the idea that JRE is mainstream. It might be the most mainstream podcast, but almost everyone I know either hates the show or believes that Joe Rogan is a bad person, so I'm skeptical.
- usrusr 5y agoA communist party taking steps against private investment? What has the world come to /s
- asteroidbelt 5y agoNo it is taking steps against independent media.
- Gustomaximus 5y agoOn the flip side China purchased most Chinese language media in Australia some time back. https://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-language-newspapers-in-australia-beijing-controls-messaging-propaganda-in-press-20160610-gpg0s3.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-language-newspapers-...
- eunos 5y agomeh these days the important messages are delivered by WeChat.
- refurb 5y agoSeems like China sees Australia as the front line in their battle with the West. The recent nuclear submarine deal makes a lot more sense with that world view.
- 8eye 5y agointeresting perspective, i have not even considered that
- notfromhere 5y agoANZAC are the only two European settled Western countries in Asia, so not surprising. Especially since Australia is so closely integrated into the Anglosphere.
- bigbillheck 5y ago> ANZAC are the only two European settled Western countries in Asia It wasn't for lack of trying.
- gpt5 5y agoANZAC stands for Army corps, not for the countries. And the countries have hemselves are not in Asia.
- gpt5 5y agoANZAC stands for Army corps, not for the countries. And the countries have themselves are not in Asia.
- djohnston 5y agoIn the West privately funded media has increased polarisation over the last 50 years, so having stronger public investments in media could be helpful to stop this pervasive divisiveness. China has the opposite configuration where the state controls all information and you'll be re-educated if you say the wrong thing loud enough. These are both extremes that are undesirable IMO.
- johnebgd 5y agoThe west just needs to reimplement the fairness doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoI’m not sure many in the west would see divisiveness as a negative, in so much that it seems necessary to reach an stable equilibrium. Yes, one side will find the other side’s position infuriating, but China is the result of what happens when one side completely wins over the other. Because there is no equilibrium to be had, they can only emphasize unity.
- th0ma5 5y agoNot defending China's idea at all, but with private media in this country having a financial motivation to knowingly lie is pretty reprehensible. They have the right to do it sure, and they should, but if a good portion of a populace lives in a fiction, that isn't great. And to be clear while leftist stuff can be extreme, sure, the current major problem is right wing extremist lies are clearly more detrimental just because of their popularity. It is not really a both sides issue.
- More-nitors 5y ago> with private media in this country having a financial motivation to knowingly lie is pretty reprehensible. That can be balanced-out with other media outlets voicing other side. And... not attacking China's great political unification, having and using politics to censor out a lot of government corruption that ultimately hurts its own people... doesn't look great (no 'political balance-of-power' + no freedom-of-speech/press + no-election: the government officials can de facto do whatever they want, from small things like accepting bribes for not noticing fake-food factories, to uh... ok I'll stop now.
- coldtea 5y agoCrude. Why force it legally, when they could just have the private news sector de facto mirror what the establishment says (complete with a faux-choice between two parties), like in the US?
- killjoywashere 5y agoIf I was Xi, I would be looking at Ruppert Murdoch as evidence par excellence of the corrosive effect of foreign investment in media.
- preach 5y agoIf I’m a hardline Westerner and I feel like participating in a pro-Chinese Western Community, what are my options? HN isn’t the place for this. Basically, I’d like to praise China for the last handful of bold moves they’ve made, but the usual channels (FB, Twitter, Reddit, HN, …) are vehemently anti-China. I’d probably get shadowbanned or banned saying the three child policy is the way to go forward. Any suggestions?
- tweedledee 5y agoBill Maher praises China for being a 'serious country' and contrasts it to the non-serious US. That is pretty mainstream. There seem to be many people, both left and right, who see China's actions on clamping down unfettered capitalism and decadence as a good thing. In my view it's a mixed bag. I think the real driving force is in preparation of a US/China conflict which is starting to feel inevitable.
- redis_mlc 5y ago> a pro-Chinese Western Community If you mean pro-CCP, they have been at war with the rest of the world since the end of WW2. So understand what you're talking about. The reason they've built hypersonic missiles and nuclear ballistic submarines is to point them at the US. BRI is to gain ports for their navy. > the last handful of bold moves Virtually everything you've heard from the CCP is self-serving propaganda with no verifiable numbers. They're facing an enormous demographic problem which the 3-child policy won't fix, and their stalled economy is revealing the mismanagement that decades of rapid growth hid - 70% of personal savings go into real estate investments, which are semi-Ponzi schemes. Half of China's food and energy are imported, and the CCP relies on US capital markets. These 3 make China incredibly vulnerable, contrary to the image projected by the CCP.
- CulturalMarxism 5y agoYou could ask this question at https://www.hexbear.net/ https://www.hexbear.net/ and probably get some real answers.
- TeeMassive 5y ago> so having stronger public investments in media could be helpful to stop this pervasive divisiveness. The government can't invest in all media organizations equally. This will just be a new source of polarization in itself.
- ipaddr 5y agoIn Canada media is controlled by a handful of private companies who are well connected to political factions. The public broadcaster while generally left tries to stay neutral. Small publications are ignored and usually shutout to the point of them needing to sue to ask a question. Private or public if the media is controlled by a small club of wealthy and/or connected players you have an unhealthy and not very free press.
- sangnoir 5y agoThe public broadcaster is "left" by US standards, but is pretty much bang in the center for the rest of the Anglophone countries.
- ipaddr 5y agoIt would be considered left by the Anglophone community in Canada but not necessarily left by Canada as a whole because Canada is an Anglophone/Francophone country with Anglophone majority with a strong Francophone minority.