Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

globalvoices.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 170 posts

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

#111

Post by unabridged »

cooper12 wrote: post #101
unabridged wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking a road is not free speech. Preventing people from going into a building is not free speech. This is just private citizens attempting to restrict the right of movement of other private citizens. The right to publish any media, no matter how obscene or political, is free speech. And the US has the closest to free speech of any major country.

> no matter how obscene Not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Diana > or political Also not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_Sta... I'd recommend reading up on these: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_o…

I was just defining what free speech was, not saying the US has 100% free speech now, or that the US had good free speech pre-internet.

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

#112

Post by unabridged »

vacri wrote: post #91
unabridged wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking a road is not free speech. Preventing people from going into a building is not free speech. This is just private citizens attempting to restrict the right of movement of other private citizens. The right to publish any media, no matter how obscene or political, is free speech. And the US has the closest to free speech of any major country.

> The right to publish any media, no matter how obscene or political, is free speech. And the US has the closest to free speech of any major country. When it comes to freedom of the press, Reporters Without Borders rates the US quite poorly - it's down at #43, with the UK at #40. When it comes to anglo cultures, the highest any of the 'five eyes' gets is New Zealand, at #13. There is a difference between law and impl…

That ranking has little to do with free speech. In most of the countries with the best scores blasphemy is illegal.

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

#113

Post by velodrome »

sushcount wrote: post #43
Retric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really interesting about this is how unstable it makes the country. Clamp down and eventually you end up in a USSR situation where the government suddenly disintegrates with little real warning because there is no feedback loop to maintain stability. Things seem ok because everyone ends up walking around pretending things are good even the people enforcing the rules. Untill you get a little spark and suddenly…

Chinese government is panicking over its crashing economy, and it shows in its actions. As of this year, it - banned soft cheese - banned all korean music and entertainment - (got rid of) Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Laureate, and prevented his wife from leaving China - banned ICO - banned a bitcoin exchange - prevented its companies from investing overseas (Wanda, etc) - (rumored) prevented the richest person from leaving…

China is an export driven economy. If a crash were to come, it would be because of a sudden lack of trade (e.g. 2008). Chinese companies are already heavily levered.

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

#115

Post by jquery »

intended wrote: post #104
Retric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really interesting about this is how unstable it makes the country. Clamp down and eventually you end up in a USSR situation where the government suddenly disintegrates with little real warning because there is no feedback loop to maintain stability. Things seem ok because everyone ends up walking around pretending things are good even the people enforcing the rules. Untill you get a little spark and suddenly…

Eh... I see the opposite. China knows better than the west what powers can be exercised on the net. They've been testing it for a long while and all the old assumptions "the net treats censorship as damage and routes around iT" etc. have been found wanting in China. As the power of the nation state returns to ascendancy, now with IT firmly under its yoke, I suspect that China will do much better and succeed. Instead…

Their government's current history is measured in decades. Future historians may yet measure it in decades. Do not be so quick to praise tyranny. It will last until the economy plateaus. Only then will we see if it is resilient.

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

#116

Post by vacri »

unabridged wrote: post #112
vacri wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The right to publish any media, no matter how obscene or political, is free speech. And the US has the closest to free speech of any major country. When it comes to freedom of the press, Reporters Without Borders rates the US quite poorly - it's down at #43, with the UK at #40. When it comes to anglo cultures, the highest any of the 'five eyes' gets is New Zealand, at #13. There is a difference between law and impl…

That ranking has little to do with free speech. In most of the countries with the best scores blasphemy is illegal.

And in the US, there are states where an atheist is legally barred from being governor. And you can be pretty sure that blaspheming in the nations listed with the best scores will be more acceptable than blaspheming in the religiose US.

As I said, there is a difference between law and implementation.

Also, it's not true that the top-scorers have blasphemy laws - most of them don't have one at all at the moment, and the ones that did were mostly used in the early part of last century (and rarely at that). Even Germany's 'blasphemy' law is actually a 'disturbing the peace' law; you're not going to go to jail for saying 'christ' when you hit your thumb with a hammer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law

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

#117

Post by ihateneckbeards »

sushcount wrote: post #43
Retric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really interesting about this is how unstable it makes the country. Clamp down and eventually you end up in a USSR situation where the government suddenly disintegrates with little real warning because there is no feedback loop to maintain stability. Things seem ok because everyone ends up walking around pretending things are good even the people enforcing the rules. Untill you get a little spark and suddenly…

Chinese government is panicking over its crashing economy, and it shows in its actions. As of this year, it - banned soft cheese - banned all korean music and entertainment - (got rid of) Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Laureate, and prevented his wife from leaving China - banned ICO - banned a bitcoin exchange - prevented its companies from investing overseas (Wanda, etc) - (rumored) prevented the richest person from leaving…

- banned Winny the pooh from social media

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

#118

Post by learc83 »

wallace_f wrote: post #82
revelation wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Law isn't what paper says, but what the ruling party decides. Isn't this up for debate? On one hand, in SK a Samsung chief and heir and also former President are facing long prison sentences (some of the protests leading up to this were argued to be the largest peaceful protests in history, ever).* On the other, in the US a convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, never spent a day in jail. He is a billionaire and ver…

>On the other, in the US a convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, never spent a day in jail.

That is incorrect. He spent 13 months in prison and is now a registered sex offender.

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

#120

Post by addHocker »

throwawaycanada wrote: post #95
toomanybeersies wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law. - Óscar R. Benavides

So much said in so few words.

Even in democracies, the law is abused by those in power. I distinctly remember one party here in germany, slowing down criminal processes of member of the oppossing parties, so that there trials could be held during the election campaigns.
Post reply on HN