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China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

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Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#81

Post by wildmusings »

chairmanwow wrote: post #45

I'm frightened by how a seemingly pragmatic government has been able to spiral into dogmatic, protectionists policies so rapidly. I suppose that I mistook the recent decades of economic development as evidence of true ideological reform taking place. Now I feel naive for expecting more from the government that imprisoned the father of their ubiquitous high speed rail system. The Eastern desire to require "harmonious…

>I'm frightened by how a seemingly pragmatic government has been able to spiral into dogmatic, protectionists policies so rapidly.

What makes you think that this is ideological rather than pragmatic? They look to America and they see the greatest power of all time being torn apart by internal cultural and political conflict. I don't like China's authoritarian system–not one bit–but I can see the logic motivating its leaders.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#82

Post by eloff »

wyager wrote: post #63
darpa_escapee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've yet to see any proposals from the latter camp whereas I've seen dozens of pieces of legislation successfully passed and attempt to pass from the former.

Are you aware of how the only people in the US to ever be successfully censored from the public internet for political (as opposed to legal) reasons are far-right websites? This literally happened in the last week; domain registrars (the only gateway the public has to critical public DNS infrastructure) decided to voluntarily censor various far-right websites citing "hate speech" as their justification. There is, evi…

I also found this surprising. Cloudflare specifically always took the stance that it's not their place to censor the internet, which is why they permitted extremist/terrorist content[1] that people were pressuring them to remove. It amazes me that they kept that, but deleted the alt-right stuff. Now I think these alt-right websites are disgusting, but worse than ISIS?

[1]https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/18/cloudflare_ceo_rubb...

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#83

Post by jawbone3 »

wyager wrote: post #63
darpa_escapee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've yet to see any proposals from the latter camp whereas I've seen dozens of pieces of legislation successfully passed and attempt to pass from the former.

Are you aware of how the only people in the US to ever be successfully censored from the public internet for political (as opposed to legal) reasons are far-right websites? This literally happened in the last week; domain registrars (the only gateway the public has to critical public DNS infrastructure) decided to voluntarily censor various far-right websites citing "hate speech" as their justification. There is, evi…

Right, there was nothing political at all about the supression of wikileaks and torrent sites, it was just legal proceedings...

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#84

Post by avaer »

jackgavigan wrote: post #7
neya wrote: post #5

There are a dozen popular live streaming apps in China where one can simply just stream what you're doing to everyone on the site and people can just watch them for hours. You can think of it like Instagram stories or Snapchat per se. Or even Facebook live. This isn't some western media propaganda. I tried one of them very recently (I don't want to give them any undeserved marketing), they allowed me to sign up and t…

> Imagine, Facebook asking you to upload your passport before you do a live stream. It wouldn't surprise me if a Western government (probably the UK's) considers introducing legislation to require exactly this in the not-too-distant future, most likely under the guise of preventing the spread of extremist propaganda. If they do, companies like Facebook and YouTube will face a choice between acceding to the new regula…

You can't fix this with tech.

No amount of decentralized web will help if ID is legally required to post things. Torrenting, encryption, and similar will simply be made illegal, since that's required for enforcement. Many of the established lobbies would support that, for the usual justifications.

You can only fix this by not letting the law start on this crazy slippery slope.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#85

Post by paradite »

1_2__4 wrote: post #78
paradite wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To create a facebook account, you need either mobile phone number or email. To have an email, you still need a mobile phone number to register for gmail (the most popular choice). To have a mobile phone number, you need your passport or ID. Yes, in some cases you can get phone numbers without passport, but then again you can also get IDs and fake passports easily in China if you want.

ID for a cell number is certainly not a requirement in the US. Or anywhere in Western Europe. Or Canada. Or Mexico. Or anywhere in South America. So where are you talking about that being a requirement ?

France:

http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/France

Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece:

https://www.miteksystems.com/blog/mobile-identity-verificati...

US maybe soon:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4886

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#86

Post by yorwba »

wyager wrote: post #63
darpa_escapee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've yet to see any proposals from the latter camp whereas I've seen dozens of pieces of legislation successfully passed and attempt to pass from the former.

Are you aware of how the only people in the US to ever be successfully censored from the public internet for political (as opposed to legal) reasons are far-right websites? This literally happened in the last week; domain registrars (the only gateway the public has to critical public DNS infrastructure) decided to voluntarily censor various far-right websites citing "hate speech" as their justification. There is, evi…

I'm under the impression that the Daily Stormer was at least somewhat widely known. Is there a website of similar reach that, say, calls for a Communist revolution or sabotage of power plants in the name of environmentalism?

I get my only news about US politics from HN, so I genuinely have no idea.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#87

Post by chairmanwow »

wildmusings wrote: post #81
chairmanwow wrote: post #45

I'm frightened by how a seemingly pragmatic government has been able to spiral into dogmatic, protectionists policies so rapidly. I suppose that I mistook the recent decades of economic development as evidence of true ideological reform taking place. Now I feel naive for expecting more from the government that imprisoned the father of their ubiquitous high speed rail system. The Eastern desire to require "harmonious…

> I'm frightened by how a seemingly pragmatic government has been able to spiral into dogmatic, protectionists policies so rapidly. What makes you think that this is ideological rather than pragmatic? They look to America and they see the greatest power of all time being torn apart by internal cultural and political conflict. I don't like China's authoritarian system–not one bit–but I can see the logic motivating its…

An understandable misconception when the freedom of presses enables publicly airing anyone's dirty laundry. Not to mention that (god forbid) there is actual debate and conflict between our citizens on the best way to handle issues.

These differences are nonetheless not my biggest grief with China. The moment you restrict criticism of your institution, you have committed to sacrificing pragmatism for ideology. Pragmatism requires commitment to the truth, which can only come from the status quo being continually challenged.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#88

Post by [deleted] »

wildmusings wrote: post #81
chairmanwow wrote: post #45

I'm frightened by how a seemingly pragmatic government has been able to spiral into dogmatic, protectionists policies so rapidly. I suppose that I mistook the recent decades of economic development as evidence of true ideological reform taking place. Now I feel naive for expecting more from the government that imprisoned the father of their ubiquitous high speed rail system. The Eastern desire to require "harmonious…

> I'm frightened by how a seemingly pragmatic government has been able to spiral into dogmatic, protectionists policies so rapidly. What makes you think that this is ideological rather than pragmatic? They look to America and they see the greatest power of all time being torn apart by internal cultural and political conflict. I don't like China's authoritarian system–not one bit–but I can see the logic motivating its…

[deleted]

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#89

Post by jawbone3 »

Freak_NL wrote: post #65
achamayou wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be pretty surprised. Not everyone in the UK has ID, and since the NIC scheme failure, it's less likely than ever to happen. ID isn't even required to vote at the moment...

That is a minor oversight that will probably be rectified at some point — other countries are doing it, it is already required in Northern Ireland, and in 2018 a pilot will be held introducing the requirement in a number of districts¹. People likely won't resist it too much. We've had this identification requirement imposed upon us in the Netherlands a few years ago, and while there is valid criticism on this require…

What is the objection to keeping track of who voted?

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#90

Post by sfifs »

no1youknowz wrote: post #21
paradite wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To create a facebook account, you need either mobile phone number or email. To have an email, you still need a mobile phone number to register for gmail (the most popular choice). To have a mobile phone number, you need your passport or ID. Yes, in some cases you can get phone numbers without passport, but then again you can also get IDs and fake passports easily in China if you want.

> To have a mobile phone number, you need your passport or ID. Not in the UK you don't. I can order a bunch of free sims with fake names and addresses and get them. I've got about 20 from EE, gifgaff, Vodafone, NanoSim, O2, etc. So by your logic. I can create fake facebook and email from a free SIM of a number that has no connection to me. Every system has a weakspot. You just need to know how to exploit it.

except that your mobile provider can probably localize you to within tens if meters. If you use modern tech, there's no real anonymity - just degrees of difficulty.
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