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> How exactly it doesn't work? Not even China has been able to make their Great Firewall resilient to stuff like VPNs. I don't have any inside information, but

by mcny 3y ago

> How exactly it doesn't work? Not even China has been able to make their Great Firewall resilient to stuff like VPNs. I don't have any inside information, but my uninformed guess is that this is by design or at least tolerated to some extent. You don't want a watertight VPN because it stifles commerce. China PR could pull a Singapore and impose the kind of punishment for using VPN that Singapore does for hard drugs. I have a friend from Texas who lives in China PR and regularly uploads to YouTube. Nothing political, he is talking about living and working as a teacher, so he isn't doing anything controversial but in theory what he is doing is unlawful by China PR laws, right?

dirtyid 3y ago
Securitized regions like XinJiang will occasionally lock phones (including foreigners) with VPN installed, need to goto police station to unlock phone after uninstalling VPN apps. That's basically hardcore VPN/GFW enforcement mode. Broadly PRC GFW is functionally VPN paywall for foreign content so most PRC nationals default to consuming media/narratives within the wall. TBH, apart from dissidents, researchers etc, in my experience, very few VPN users jump wall for foreign news, like exposure might be incidental due to being shared on timeline, but most PRC nationals jump wall for porn, business and lols. Plenty of foreign news gets filtered to domestic PRC net via diasphora who reverse VPN and post content back into PRC net - lots of foreign/western "propaganda" makes it's way in PRC, it's just rate limited to point where influence is limited, or censored if it ever gets legs. In terms of regulations: VPN allowed for commerce, enforcement mostly against businesses who don't register/get approval using sanctioned VPNs. Individuals _generally_ free to use - there aren't clear laws yet against individual use, currently regulations target operators. 99% of VPN enforcement is at this level. Few individuals (outside XinJiang/Tibet) and no foreigners as far as I'm aware of have gotten in shit for VPN. For nationals who got in shit, it's what they do with VPN (coordinating with foreign forces etc), not use itself.

by mcny 3y ago

dirtyid 3y ago

Securitized regions like XinJiang will occasionally lock phones (including foreigners) with VPN installed, need to goto police station to unlock phone after uninstalling VPN apps. That's basically hardcore VPN/GFW enforcement mode. Broadly PRC GFW is functionally VPN paywall for foreign content so most PRC nationals default to consuming media/narratives within the wall. TBH, apart from dissidents, researchers etc, in my experience, very few VPN users jump wall for foreign news, like exposure might be incidental due to being shared on timeline, but most PRC nationals jump wall for porn, business and lols. Plenty of foreign news gets filtered to domestic PRC net via diasphora who reverse VPN and post content back into PRC net - lots of foreign/western "propaganda" makes it's way in PRC, it's just rate limited to point where influence is limited, or censored if it ever gets legs. In terms of regulations: VPN allowed for commerce, enforcement mostly against businesses who don't register/get approval using sanctioned VPNs. Individuals _generally_ free to use - there aren't clear laws yet against individual use, currently regulations target operators. 99% of VPN enforcement is at this level. Few individuals (outside XinJiang/Tibet) and no foreigners as far as I'm aware of have gotten in shit for VPN. For nationals who got in shit, it's what they do with VPN (coordinating with foreign forces etc), not use itself.