China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages • Hacker News Board

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#11

Post by drdaeman » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 10:13 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #8

nickthemagicman wrote: post #2

Jesus that's so repressive. And I'm sure the laws are pretty subjective as well or at least not something the average chat admin is fully up to speed with. Essentially the outcome of this will be to kill chats or send it underground to tor or something.

Well, then, owners, admins and mods just need to be anonymous and untraceable. Users too, of course. So yeah, Tor or something stronger :)

I don't think it's about anonymous chats, though (AFAIK they're were made illegal in China for some time, just like anonymous commenting). Probably about chats where users know each other. And it doesn't work if there's a snitch among the peers.

For the smaller casual "circle of acquaintances (relatives, friends, coworkers, gaming teammates, etc)" chats, there should be no owner, though - small non-public invite-only communities work perfectly well without administration. This doesn't solve "poster is responsible" but it solves "owner is responsible".

For larger or open chats - yes, the owner should be someone pseudonymous (or just a robot).

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#12

Post by revelation » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 10:20 PM UTC

brd wrote: post #10

The regulations also demand that all chat room users in mainland China verify their real identity... Effective 8 October, the following types of content will be prohibited in chat groups on China-based messaging platforms: 1. Sensitive political content 2. Rumors 3... Holy shit. What is this going to do to the Chinese tech scene? The liability being created here is crazy to consider. Lets all hope these practices are…

It just means they can jail or shutdown who they want. Of course they could and have done that before, so really there is no change. Law isn't what paper says, but what the ruling party decides.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#13

Post by bsder » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 10:37 PM UTC

marian0_ wrote: post #3

nickthemagicman wrote: post #2

Jesus that's so repressive. And I'm sure the laws are pretty subjective as well or at least not something the average chat admin is fully up to speed with. Essentially the outcome of this will be to kill chats or send it underground to tor or something.

In Spain, you as a website admin can be found liable for unlawful messages left by your users too. So it's not like this is unexpectedly repressive for me. A verdict that shows so: http://www.asesoriayempresas.es/jurisprudencia/JURIDICO/1959...

I presume that "unlawful" is a bit more circumscribed in Spain than in China.

Taking the article's example, would you be liable for ranting about a drunk driving checkpoint being a shakedown?

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#14

Post by sebastianconcpt » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 10:43 PM UTC

Comrades don't need to indoctinate when is way easier for them to just censor by making illegal everything they don't like. Didn't Maduro in Venezuela told its minions a month ago to prosecute twitter users who expressed dissent? He even inspired them to put them 30 years in jail. What we are seeing here is the instantiation of that strategy in internet messages. That doesn't mean that it is not their normal for every other aspect in society. Remember this the next time that The Economist, Time magazine or New York Times tries to talk about "the wonders" of communism.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#15

Post by yarg » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 11:02 PM UTC

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #14

Comrades don't need to indoctinate when is way easier for them to just censor by making illegal everything they don't like. Didn't Maduro in Venezuela told its minions a month ago to prosecute twitter users who expressed dissent? He even inspired them to put them 30 years in jail. What we are seeing here is the instantiation of that strategy in internet messages. That doesn't mean that it is not their normal for ever…

The Communist Party does not practice communism - it never has. They are no more communists than the DPRK is democratic. Communism was co-opted very early on and became just another form of authoritarianism.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#16

Post by notgood » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 11:12 PM UTC

There is fair amount of really smart people inside China (in tech scene and otherwise) that probably want out [of the country] but don't know a clear path for doing so, I think efforts should be made to that clear path; to work on companies outside China [where they don't fear for their life if someone made a anti-government comment on their site]. Due to censorship by the national dictatorship such online effort must be done using randomly generated domains (known by word of mouth), hard to censor texts (eg. text inside images that use weird fonts; as intro inside pirated comics/movies/videogames, private messages inside Alibaba and other platform that the Government won't shot down)

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#17

Post by tosser350 » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 11:12 PM UTC

yarg wrote: post #15

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #14

Comrades don't need to indoctinate when is way easier for them to just censor by making illegal everything they don't like. Didn't Maduro in Venezuela told its minions a month ago to prosecute twitter users who expressed dissent? He even inspired them to put them 30 years in jail. What we are seeing here is the instantiation of that strategy in internet messages. That doesn't mean that it is not their normal for ever…

The Communist Party does not practice communism - it never has. They are no more communists than the DPRK is democratic. Communism was co-opted very early on and became just another form of authoritarianism.

"X is not true socialism/communism" has become the new godwin's law.

Whenever the failure of a socialist/communist government is discussed inevitably is wasn't TRUE socialism/communism

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#18

Post by mirimir » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 11:17 PM UTC

yarg wrote: post #15

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #14

Comrades don't need to indoctinate when is way easier for them to just censor by making illegal everything they don't like. Didn't Maduro in Venezuela told its minions a month ago to prosecute twitter users who expressed dissent? He even inspired them to put them 30 years in jail. What we are seeing here is the instantiation of that strategy in internet messages. That doesn't mean that it is not their normal for ever…

The Communist Party does not practice communism - it never has. They are no more communists than the DPRK is democratic. Communism was co-opted very early on and became just another form of authoritarianism.

Yes, this can't be stressed or repeated enough!

The Soviet Communist Party was/is rather like Scientology. At the noob level, in the Pioneers (a lot like US Boy Scouts) it was all about ideals/ideology and honor. At some point, you realized that members got nice perks. More money. Access to stores that carried better food and stuff. And eventually, as you got into higher-level leadership, you started to get that it was all bullshit.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#19

Post by ferongr » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 11:19 PM UTC

yarg wrote: post #15

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #14

Comrades don't need to indoctinate when is way easier for them to just censor by making illegal everything they don't like. Didn't Maduro in Venezuela told its minions a month ago to prosecute twitter users who expressed dissent? He even inspired them to put them 30 years in jail. What we are seeing here is the instantiation of that strategy in internet messages. That doesn't mean that it is not their normal for ever…

The Communist Party does not practice communism - it never has. They are no more communists than the DPRK is democratic. Communism was co-opted very early on and became just another form of authoritarianism.

No true Scotsman?

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#20

Post by EGreg » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 11:22 PM UTC

Makes me so happy to live in what is probably the country with the most freedom of speech. The USA may be behind other countries in some things but not freedom of speech!

If you live in a country with such draconian (and increasing) measures, there is only one thing to do:

Use encryption. If only a few people use it, then they are targeted. If merely 10% of people use an encrypted protocol, it may be blocked. But if EVERYONE uses it, it will be computationally infeasible to decrypt everyone's messages. And banning eg TLS or SSH would be very hard to do.

In addition to this, DECENTRALIZE ALL THE THINGS. When there is no single server, there is nothing to shut down. There is no central owner to intimidate. People will have to go back to the bad old days of "tattle tales" and KGB spies among the regular people.

And seriously, if democracy works at all in these countries, all lawful means must be taken to defend what is left of freedom of speech. Who are these people who are actually making these laws, anyway? Every time they break them, it should be publicized.