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I think the Chinese government tolerates a certain amount of scandal in order to pacify the populace. The argument for 'total government control' is much strong

I think the Chinese government tolerates a certain amount of scandal in order to pacify the populace. The argument for 'total government control' is much stronger when you consider things like: 1. You need a license from the government to run a web server 2. You need a chinese ID # to sign up for Weibo 3. QQ, Weixin, Weibo, RenRen, etc censor massive amounts of content at the whim of the government 4. The great firewall is getting smarter about detecting and blocking VPN connections, and VPN operators in China must be specifically licensed by the government I can list more, but I think these alone paint a pretty convincing picture that 'totally controlled by China's gov' is closer to true than false.

gbog 14y ago
Well, maybe "totally" was used in the new (absence of) meaning that is used nowadays to totally look cool, as in "I totally like doughnuts" (here "totally" conveys nothing more than "really", or any other stopwords). In this case, yes, I agree: the Chinese government "somewhat" or "really" controls Chinese internet, and even probably has its hand on a on/off switch somewhere. But in English and in normal discussions, "totally" means "in totality", or "in the sum and all its parts". Related totalitarism means "control of every part of people's life". We need not to look very far to see an example of a "totally gov-controled internet": North Korea is just like that. But China is not. The sheer number of posts by minute means it cannot be realistically "totally controlled", because automatic filters are easy to circumvent, and human filters are not fast enough. A simple rumour of ex-ex-president Jiang's death would spread like fire and no deleting can stop it. The only way to stop that would be to shut down internet, and /this/ would push everyone in the streets. What I mean is that the Chinese Internet is now a heavyweight social force that is already out of Chinese government control (or anyone else, for that matter). They have to live with it, and adapt themselves.

gbog 14y ago

Well, maybe "totally" was used in the new (absence of) meaning that is used nowadays to totally look cool, as in "I totally like doughnuts" (here "totally" conveys nothing more than "really", or any other stopwords). In this case, yes, I agree: the Chinese government "somewhat" or "really" controls Chinese internet, and even probably has its hand on a on/off switch somewhere. But in English and in normal discussions, "totally" means "in totality", or "in the sum and all its parts". Related totalitarism means "control of every part of people's life". We need not to look very far to see an example of a "totally gov-controled internet": North Korea is just like that. But China is not. The sheer number of posts by minute means it cannot be realistically "totally controlled", because automatic filters are easy to circumvent, and human filters are not fast enough. A simple rumour of ex-ex-president Jiang's death would spread like fire and no deleting can stop it. The only way to stop that would be to shut down internet, and /this/ would push everyone in the streets. What I mean is that the Chinese Internet is now a heavyweight social force that is already out of Chinese government control (or anyone else, for that matter). They have to live with it, and adapt themselves.