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China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

reuters.com

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Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#41

Post by coldtea »

netcan wrote: post #22
AznHisoka wrote: post #3

Newbie question but what is China's rationale for their internet censorship and firewall? What are they afraid of?

The concept they use is “social harmony.” This is a sort of shorthand for discouraging people from developing strong, dissident, aberrant or divisive political positions. Discouraging people from taking on political identities in general, other than a unified chinese identity. Discouraging people from disparaging and/or distrusting the government. Keeping fringey social trends out of the mainstream. If you think of h…

>The skeptical take is that the CCP is protecting itself from popular and democratic revolutionary movements.

On the other hand, a country with 1.x billion people and several languages/ethnicities can become a huge hell-hole without social harmony.

This "revolution" thing didn't end that well in Libya, even if they managed to get rid of the old leader. Same with the "democracy" that was re-installed in Iraq and elsewhere.

So, one has to be careful what they wish for.

Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#42

Post by Baeocystin »

coldtea wrote: post #39
Baeocystin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't mistake a curated highlight reel for ground truth. I used to live in China when I was a kid. There are vast aspects both wonderful and terrible that never seem to make themselves known in the Western world. China has tremendous potential. It also has deep, systemic problems with no easy solution (or even a solution at all) in sight.

So just like any other country, which is amazing for a 1.x billion behemoth.

No. Amplified. The problems we're having in the West, even today, are a hangnail compared to the societal-structural issues currently facing mainland China.

Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#43

Post by odiroot »

visarga wrote: post #12
odiroot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They care about social harmony. Don't want to make people upset. That's the official version. It's most probably about rejecting the influences from the West, preservation of Chinese culture. Recently there's also quite a huge war on influence of Korean culture.

Just as Fox News won't tell the truth, and hold on to their line even in the face of evidence, so do the Chinese. Most of us are guilty of not trying to be inclusive enough with other people and prefer to live in our little bubble. There is always a cost for that - just look at what happened in 2016-17.

Don't make it unnecessarily partisan.

I have no beef in this fight, not being an American, but I see the same behaviour from Fox, CNN (probably the biggest offender), MSNBC, Breitbart and sometimes even BBC.

Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#45

Post by JPKab »

mtgx wrote: post #37
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years? China has been closing ever since the Olympics ended in...2008. Its been almost a decade now. Theory is they'll start opening up again in the run up to 2022...they can't really hold an Olympics while blocking all the major worldwide internet sites, too much face lost. This definitely isn't just Xi's fault.

It's almost like having a single political party is a bad thing for a society or something.

Being limited to only 2 parties is fucking awful. I can't imagine how bad the USA would be if we were suddenly forced to just have one.

Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#46

Post by helloindia »

perlpimp wrote: post #30
netcan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept they use is “social harmony.” This is a sort of shorthand for discouraging people from developing strong, dissident, aberrant or divisive political positions. Discouraging people from taking on political identities in general, other than a unified chinese identity. Discouraging people from disparaging and/or distrusting the government. Keeping fringey social trends out of the mainstream. If you think of h…

China will consider democracy only when the credit bubble pops which will delegitimize the Communist party. Tianamen square was at the inflection point when Investment flooded into corrupt post maoist china, democratic movement was everywhere but was quashed by increasingly belligerent communists apparatchiks.

Hasn't happened in India, yet.

Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#47

Post by justicezyx »

coldtea wrote: post #41
netcan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept they use is “social harmony.” This is a sort of shorthand for discouraging people from developing strong, dissident, aberrant or divisive political positions. Discouraging people from taking on political identities in general, other than a unified chinese identity. Discouraging people from disparaging and/or distrusting the government. Keeping fringey social trends out of the mainstream. If you think of h…

> The skeptical take is that the CCP is protecting itself from popular and democratic revolutionary movements. On the other hand, a country with 1.x billion people and several languages/ethnicities can become a huge hell-hole without social harmony. This "revolution" thing didn't end that well in Libya, even if they managed to get rid of the old leader. Same with the "democracy" that was re-installed in Iraq and else…

I want to add that historically Chinese people (not the modern sense of china) went through brutal revolutions either started by powerful individuals or as grass root riots against the central dynasty. The lesson learned is clear, the people are suffering no matter what. So there is a strong sense to be stable for the people, even it means tolerates a less than perfect government.

Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#48

Post by xiaoma »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #34
ePierre wrote: post #20

Well... Fortunately, there is still Taiwan, the only Chinese-speaking country where creativity and freedom of speech is nurtured and not censored!

Well, Singapore isn't that bad. Regardless, I'm not sure what Taiwan is going to save us from.

Singapore's not that bad as long as you're not gay (which is illegal and punishable by a prison term), a political activist for the opposition party, too independent thinking or otherwise labeled as undesirable by the government.

Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#49

Post by _ptgt »

AznHisoka wrote: post #3

Newbie question but what is China's rationale for their internet censorship and firewall? What are they afraid of?

The CCP is the only political party in China and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep it that way. The CCP is also known for abducting journalists for reporting on "rumors" (i.e. reporting on stuff the CCP doesn't like), the Tiananmen Square massacre, hiring an army of paid internet trolls to advance the party line on domestic and foreign websites, and trying to set up an Orwellian "social credit" system where things like support for the party line affect whether you can take out a loan from the bank or use the public transit system. I could go on but I think you get the point.

EDIT: Not sure why I'm being downvoted, everything I mentioned has been widely reported on and can be confirmed in ten seconds with a Google search.

Re: China's bloggers, filmmakers feel chill of internet crackdown

#50

Post by [deleted] »

nickrio wrote: post #15
visarga wrote: post #9

Probably not Xi's problem but China will lag economically and creatively because of this restriction. It's just ceding the entertainment initiative to other creators, outside of China. Even if they ban all creative content from outside China, don't they know that a terabyte HDD can hold enough movies to last for a year, and be copied easily?

Ha! CCP don't give any shit about creativity . They want to be in control, including controlling creativity. In fact, if you're a Chinese people like me, you probably learned CCP's "Three Represents" when you in mid school. Which is: - "Represents advanced social productive forces" stands for economic production - "Represents the progressive course of China's advanced culture" stands for cultural development - "Repre…

[deleted]
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