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China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

washingtonpost.com

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Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#51

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jondubois wrote: post #44
gohrt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is "China" who picks "their" version? The Chinese Communist Party, or the Chinese people? How would China become dependent on the West if Chinese people had access to non-CommunityParty ideas?

Chinese people would be consuming western media through Facebook, Twitter etc... Through this media, they would be shown advertisements for US companies selling US products. Soon enough, Chinese people would no longer be content with Chinese-made goods and services from small Chinese suppliers (e.g. through decentralized marketplaces like Alibaba) - Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketp…

> Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketplaces like Amazon and Apple store

Both totally available in China already via their local forms (store.apple.cn and amazon.cn). My wife orders from Amazon a lot.

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#52

Post by waterhouse »

jondubois wrote: post #48
joe_the_user wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the many "the West is a problematic too" responses here a bit troubling. Not that I don't find the West problematic but the many problems of the West don't actually make China's problems any better and I'm not sure there are many who seem to think they do.

China definitely has its problems but my point is that there are problems everywhere and we shouldn't single-out any specific country because we think that their problems are worse than ours (maybe they have the opposite opinion). The reality is that no one has the moral high ground; we are all competing for resources and relevance and every country is willing to resort to dirty tricks to get ahead. China has the Gre…

Here is a general argument for giving more criticism to countries (or, in general, bad actors) who do worse things: It provides a better incentive gradient to avoid doing bad things than complaining equally about all countries that do at least some of a bad thing.

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#53

Post by kmonsen »

jondubois wrote: post #48
joe_the_user wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the many "the West is a problematic too" responses here a bit troubling. Not that I don't find the West problematic but the many problems of the West don't actually make China's problems any better and I'm not sure there are many who seem to think they do.

China definitely has its problems but my point is that there are problems everywhere and we shouldn't single-out any specific country because we think that their problems are worse than ours (maybe they have the opposite opinion). The reality is that no one has the moral high ground; we are all competing for resources and relevance and every country is willing to resort to dirty tricks to get ahead. China has the Gre…

One is allowing free information while the other has the great firewall and random arrests for people writing negative comments about the party in power.

Although the US is not as democratic as it should be your comparison is not even laughable.

I find it hard that people can be so misled, or maybe you are just trolling. China has a brutal dictatorship that executes people for trying to get more power and were responsible for the Tiananmen massacre and still will not even admit it happened.

If you think you could live in China and even write anything about the party the way you write about the US government from your comment you are delusional. The US has a very free press and free speech for everyone.

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#54

Post by babuskov »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #20
duncan_bayne wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure; but you're not making a moral argument here right? That is, they can decide, but it's still objectively wrong.

I am a guest in this country. Irrespective of what I believe is right or unalienable it is not my place to insert myself into their politics.

Wow. I wish if more Americans would think like that.

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#55

Post by nothrabannosir »

jondubois wrote: post #48
joe_the_user wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the many "the West is a problematic too" responses here a bit troubling. Not that I don't find the West problematic but the many problems of the West don't actually make China's problems any better and I'm not sure there are many who seem to think they do.

China definitely has its problems but my point is that there are problems everywhere and we shouldn't single-out any specific country because we think that their problems are worse than ours (maybe they have the opposite opinion). The reality is that no one has the moral high ground; we are all competing for resources and relevance and every country is willing to resort to dirty tricks to get ahead. China has the Gre…

No; we should single them out in this thread. Because this thread is about them.

We talk about the NSA about five times as much as about the Great Firewall. And when we do, it's off-topic to butt in with "but China has TGF!" Just as much, this is not the place to dismiss anything based on the NSA.

This is as literal an example of changing the subject as you can get. A hypocrite isn't wrong. He's just a hypocrite. Everybody is. Can we please move on and actually discuss the subject at hand instead of deflecting?

OP is completely right.

(Btw I thought your gp comment was good, this is just about the "hypocrisy means you can't criticise" part. +1 man!)

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#56

Post by ralusek »

jondubois wrote: post #44
gohrt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is "China" who picks "their" version? The Chinese Communist Party, or the Chinese people? How would China become dependent on the West if Chinese people had access to non-CommunityParty ideas?

Chinese people would be consuming western media through Facebook, Twitter etc... Through this media, they would be shown advertisements for US companies selling US products. Soon enough, Chinese people would no longer be content with Chinese-made goods and services from small Chinese suppliers (e.g. through decentralized marketplaces like Alibaba) - Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketp…

Letting the Chinese people choose what the Chinese people want is what's right for the Chinese people. If they are advertised US products and Chinese products, and they purchase US products, so be it. It happens in the other direction all the time, and it funds China from the west.

Economics aside though, there are enormously dangerous consequences to controlling the exchange of information.

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#57

Post by kirrent »

jondubois wrote: post #48
joe_the_user wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the many "the West is a problematic too" responses here a bit troubling. Not that I don't find the West problematic but the many problems of the West don't actually make China's problems any better and I'm not sure there are many who seem to think they do.

China definitely has its problems but my point is that there are problems everywhere and we shouldn't single-out any specific country because we think that their problems are worse than ours (maybe they have the opposite opinion). The reality is that no one has the moral high ground; we are all competing for resources and relevance and every country is willing to resort to dirty tricks to get ahead. China has the Gre…

If there is no-one who has the moral high ground isn't a universal and free internet all the more important?

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#58

Post by catnaroek »

joe_the_user wrote: post #42
jondubois wrote: post #33

The Great Firewall actually makes a lot of sense. Everyone thinks of themselves as being rational and unbiased - But in fact, we are all irrational, biased and at times hypocritical. Those people who think that they are rational and objective are usually the least rational and most hypocritical of all because they lack self-awareness. As westerners, as much as we like to pretend that we know the whole truth, in reali…

I find the many "the West is a problematic too" responses here a bit troubling. Not that I don't find the West problematic but the many problems of the West don't actually make China's problems any better and I'm not sure there are many who seem to think they do.

History suggests that China's main problems in the last couple of centuries were Japan and the West themselves. (Not that one can wish others out of existence.) Curtailing the influence of Western ideas makes perfect sense for them.

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#59

Post by venomsnake »

China is just making real the wet dreams of RIAA and MPAA executives.

It is coming in the west too - for copyright, hate speech, terrorism, child porn - the internet will be as tightly locked here too. The fact that so much of it is already a walled garden makes it easier. Remove the web browser from the iDevices and you have a very compelling ecosystem for any dictatorship. It may take 50 years more, but the trends are unmistakable.

We need next generation of communication networks. That make laugh of national sovereignty. I think google's project loon and the likes are a good way. Fill a country sky with relaying stations and the government will make itself broke trying to take them down.

Re: China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

#60

Post by argonaut »

jgreen10 wrote: post #39
chillacy wrote: post #7

> China has achieved this. It can communicate with the outside world, meanwhile Western opinion cannot easily penetrate as ideological tools Media is powerful. And even in the US, most of us self-censor our news (liberal vs conservative media) to the point where we're largely reading only views we agree on (HN is no different in that regard). I always find it amusing that we can all read the same news with different…

When I'm in Russia, I find the state-controlled media surprisingly critical of government policy and very outward looking. They are clearly ignoring the elephant in the room: the country being an ungovernable pool of corruption that can only be kept together by instilling nationalism and foreign threats and an authoritarian leader, but then again, it's not like US media are really asking critical questions. With or w…

The US media as a whole may not be asking critical questions, but that's not the point of free press. The fact is that the US media is free to ask critical questions, and therefore some, though not all, of the media ask critical questions.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

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