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Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

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Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#261

Post by luwh »

aembleton wrote: post #242
rodgerd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government censor in New Zealand wants web sites to submit their material, item by item, to the censor's office for approval. Australia and the UK already have firewalls that filter all Internet traffic which "my bad, so sorry" seem to keep "accidentally" including all sorts of sites their backing legislation doesn't justify (at least as far as anyone can tell - the Australian government list is confidential). Th…

I'm in the UK. Can you give me a URL that is blocked by the national firewall?

All the pirate sites like kickass are blocked in UK

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#262

Post by majewsky »

jbmorgado wrote: post #124
SCAQTony wrote: post #36

I am not a sociologist, political scientist, or an economist. It appears that China is too big to govern and has become a diseconomy of scale. China has 160 cities with over 1-million people in them (US has 10 cities) and I think it's a miracle that the lights still work and they have running water. When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier (Observe what it takes to fly a B-52). The PRC seems…

Historically, too big to govern would apply not to the number of citizens but to the time information needed to cross the empire. Hence the famous Rome roads, the Nile for the Egiptians or the excellent communication system of the Incas (there are quite a few other examples) that made those empires possible. China might have been historically to big to govern with some stability, but with the high speed communication…

Or they might just be hitting different obstacles now. History is not always a linear interpolation of the past (though more often than most people are ready to admit).

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#263

Post by majewsky »

chrischen wrote: post #237
prewett wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about money or protectionism. This is about information control. The government states what they wish the truth were as if it were true. This is not believable if there is other evidence, or even a broad discussion. Hence, viewpoints contrary to the government's "truth" must be stamped out. Apparently Xi's predecessors did not think this was as important, but Xi seems to be old-school. I do not think this…

China's still not developed enough. Foreign media and foreign freedom of the press doesn't mean all press are publishing good things, or things good for the public. In a developed nation this is OK because the public has fewer problems to worry about and can devote the time to punish bad press or filter out bad actors. In China where people worry about many things including clean water and corruption, having to have…

> In China where people worry about many things including clean water and corruption, having to have to worry about a large portion of the population being swindled by a bad acting foreign media propaganda is a real concern.

And how are they gonna act against poisonous water and corruption if they cannot form a movement through some sort of free media?

> In an undeveloped country this could potentially result in a nazi takeover. See impoverished Germany after World War I as an example.

Do you really consider 1930s Germany undeveloped? Even a developed country is not impenetrable to propaganda. Just look at all the radical nationalists across all of Europe.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#265

Post by contingencies »

I've worked for foreign publishers here in China. I've worked for foreign publishers that have been raided and shut down by the publishing bureau in China. I've continued to work for the same foreign publishers, operating essentially the same business, even after they were raided, and seen them continue successfully for more than a decade.

There are rules and there is implementation. Reality in China is not so cut and dried.

I share pbkhrv's sentiment about this possibly being a preparation for a rash of bad economic news late this year. I have it on very reasonable authority that the RMB will tank at least 15% by end of year.

The view from here in China is basically the same as ever... nobody with money really cares about foreign journalism and reporting, only food prices (steadily increasing), education (crisis), health (crisis), pollution (huge) and inflation (big). Transport is also a problem. They just try to get their money out.

The Chinese government has a difficult job. They don't really do too badly when all things are considered.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#266

Post by jryle80 »

longcheng wrote: post #248
hga wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this sort of "stability" without massively greater levels of repression† is only metastable, it sets the rulers up for things like preference cascades, such as the one that sparked the "Arab Spring". The PRC's nomenklatura ought to be worried about this recent example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceau%C8%99escu%27s_final_speec... 4 days later he and his wife were summarily executed (and large numbers of public/…

please don't educate me on China. I was born there and much older than your 1988 roommates. China is not perfect, but it's way better than what western media depicts. On the other hand, you have to be political correct in every country, even in US ...

Care to show how western media depicts China? Do you want to bet that for every negative article you cite, I can find a positive one?

I was in China last week. Major Western news sources such as NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, BBC are all blocked as far as I can tell. So Chinese audience is deprived of major alternative sources, political correct or not.

Also, not sure how your age is relevant?

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#267

Post by aembleton »

luwh wrote: post #261
aembleton wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the UK. Can you give me a URL that is blocked by the national firewall?

All the pirate sites like kickass are blocked in UK

http://kattorrents.us/, http://kickasstorrents.eu/ works for me, I'm on Plusnet. They're just ones I found by Googling for them, is there a specific URL that doesn't work?

https://pirateproxy.pw/ also works.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#270

Post by nikdaheratik »

digi_owl wrote: post #193
pmarreck wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and with that, I suddenly regret not reading me some Ayn Rand

Not really. The fallacy is likely to come on the next line below the quote, where the quote gets used as an excuse to ignore all laws. including things like traffic regulations and public drunkenness. The overall message is that laws and government is an obstruction to be ignored or demolished. As i get older i learn that while it is good to question laws and regulations, many of them have actual factual reasons to e…

As I read somewhere: every line in the building code was written in blood.

Of course, the same can't be said for the anti-trust regulation book.

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