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The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders

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Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#121

Post by nradov »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #90
nradov wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Providing factual information to people is in no way intervening in the domestic affairs of another country.

Just like Russia in the recent US election cycle? Or is their propaganda and influence over a country somehow different?

Now you're getting off topic. Private citizens making factual information available is literally the opposite of propaganda.

It's no surprise that Russia tried to influence US politics. We need to do a better job of educating our citizens on critical thinking, including recognizing propaganda and fake news.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#122

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

nradov wrote: post #121
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like Russia in the recent US election cycle? Or is their propaganda and influence over a country somehow different?

Now you're getting off topic. Private citizens making factual information available is literally the opposite of propaganda. It's no surprise that Russia tried to influence US politics. We need to do a better job of educating our citizens on critical thinking, including recognizing propaganda and fake news.

> Private citizens making factual information available is literally the opposite of propaganda.

This may be true if correctly done, but chances are good that if a state actor tried to Correct the Record, they would add their own political spin or only give information that helps the nation giving the information, and it would be widely seen as propaganda and looked at with disdain by most of the population.

Not all of what Russia released was just emotional manipulation. Russia released the DNC emails, which greatly increased political instability despite the fact that it was true. Russia is now seen as a meddler in our democratic process.

You don't think similar disdain would be seen towards Americans if we inject political instability into their country?

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#123

Post by tim333 »

fatjokes wrote: post #111
tim333 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in HK for a while under British rule. Us Brits had some advantages. Most obviously Brits had the right to live and study and the like in the UK whereas HK Chinese didn't. Also most of the better government funded jobs tended to go to Brits rather than HK Chinese. The HK Chinese were however much better off at the time under British rule than the mainland Chinese were under China's. China was kind of a mess at t…

> The HK Chinese were however much better off at the time under British rule than the mainland Chinese were under China's. China was kind of a mess at the time. Perhaps materially, but on principle I don't think anyone would want to be considered second-class.

Most of the mainland Chinese were second-class to the communist party insiders back then and couldn't even travel around China without special permits.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#124

Post by def_true_false »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #122
nradov wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're getting off topic. Private citizens making factual information available is literally the opposite of propaganda. It's no surprise that Russia tried to influence US politics. We need to do a better job of educating our citizens on critical thinking, including recognizing propaganda and fake news.

> Private citizens making factual information available is literally the opposite of propaganda. This may be true if correctly done, but chances are good that if a state actor tried to Correct the Record, they would add their own political spin or only give information that helps the nation giving the information, and it would be widely seen as propaganda and looked at with disdain by most of the population. Not all…

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

Would you say this is propaganda?

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#125

Post by stale2002 »

ashleycole wrote: post #106
stale2002 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, china is going to come after me for posting information about them on the internet that they don't like! Oh no, my anonymous github account will be hacked! Seriously, this shit doesn't happen. There are too many people doing too many things in the world for a government across the world to do much of anything to anyone. I am not ever going to live my life in fear of something dumb, like that. I am going to cri…

If someone actually did this successfully, then GitHub is put in a very tough spot where they have to choose between potentially losing the Chinese market, or begin to censor their platform, which could be the beginning of the end for them (I imagine GitLab would certainly take advantage of the situation). China would most definitely retaliate; first by threatening and attacking GitHub, and if that didn't work then b…

This kind of stuff has already played out. For years, people have been putting stuff on github, for the purpose of pissing off china. The most famous example is with GreatFire, an organization that helps people get around the great firewall of china. That is why I defended it as a very good example of a way to fight chinese censorship. Because people are literally already doing it, and the attempted attacks on those people, and github, have failed.

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

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

China did not win. Github did not get permanently blocked. They got DDoS for a week or something, but ultimately did not lose "billions".

The reason these temporary blocking attempts and attacks fail, is because github is a critical piece of infrastructure, and if a country blocks it, then it will suffer massive economic damage, and be forced to reconsider the block.

I very much hope that China continues to waste their time on these attacks. They will fail like they failed before. The more desperate they are, the more that they thrash around and fail to achieve any results, the more that people realize how little power they actually have to stop people from spreading information.

"This would result in the Chinese companies/government losing billions, their tech progress could be severely hurt, and they would risk enraging the Chinese dev community."

Good. Maybe then the Chinese citizens will do something about it. Chinese censorship mostly only hurts their own people (and by extension, it would then hurt the people in power), which will hurt them in the long term.

"It's very naive to think that the people responsible for creating and spreading this repo wouldn't be attacked"

The GreatFire people seem to be doing just fine, despite how much they have pissed off the chinese government. So empirically, as proven by facts, you are wrong.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#126

Post by em500 »

eyedeally wrote: post #107
steve19 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not arguing for British colonization, but were they second class citizens? I believe they were British Subjects and therefor entitled to all the rights of any other British subject, or at least that of British subjects in any other British Dependent Territory.

The primary objective of British colonization around the world has been without exception the subjugation of the native population in order to extract economic benefits. The objective fact is that Hong Kong now enjoys greater electoral freedom after severance from British colonial rule and returning to Chinese sovereignty. Yet the cacophony coming out of western media are actively encouraging the repainting of an oth…

> The objective fact is that Hong Kong now enjoys greater electoral freedom after severance from British colonial rule and returning to Chinese sovereignty.

The Chinese had a direct hand in making that so: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/th...

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#127

Post by balance_factor »

steve19 wrote: post #92
fatjokes wrote: post #87

The people of Hong Kong are hardly winning supporters within China. Much is made of the disdain that Hong Kong people have for Chinese mainlanders, but less is mentioned that it is equally true in reverse. There is a commonly held belief (which I haven't researched and thus don't know if true or not) that they didn't make nearly as much of a ruckus when they were under British colonial rule, when they were de facto s…

I am not arguing for British colonization, but were they second class citizens? I believe they were British Subjects and therefor entitled to all the rights of any other British subject, or at least that of British subjects in any other British Dependent Territory.

I suppose it's the fading light of England's imperial hubris that is oblivious to why a Chinese man would fail to appreciate that he is the "subject" of a monarch who lies over 9,500 km away.

What rights do those the British try to "subjugate" in the six counties of north Ireland have? Diplock courts, the Special Powers act, shoot-to-kill, military/intelligence collusion with loyalist death squads etc.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#128

Post by ashleycole »

stale2002 wrote: post #125
ashleycole wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone actually did this successfully, then GitHub is put in a very tough spot where they have to choose between potentially losing the Chinese market, or begin to censor their platform, which could be the beginning of the end for them (I imagine GitLab would certainly take advantage of the situation). China would most definitely retaliate; first by threatening and attacking GitHub, and if that didn't work then b…

This kind of stuff has already played out. For years, people have been putting stuff on github, for the purpose of pissing off china. The most famous example is with GreatFire, an organization that helps people get around the great firewall of china. That is why I defended it as a very good example of a way to fight chinese censorship. Because people are literally already doing it, and the attempted attacks on those…

I'm well aware of previous incidents, which is my basis for why GitHub is the platform that can cause so much damage to the Chinese government. We both seem to agree that China is very dependent on GitHub (perhaps the only western website they still rely on) and the economic damage of being forced to block it would be astronomical.

What I suggested and GreatFire is miles apart. Moreover, I'm not saying that throwing up some wikipedia articles about Tiananmen, Chairman Mao, etc. will result in China being forced to block GitHub or attack you. The path to success is to have the repo spread to tens of millions of Chinese locals. Regular people, not just the tech savvy that knows what a VPN is. It certainly won't be easy, especially considering they can easily shadowblock all links to the repo, the name of the repo, a picture with a link/QR, etc.

By the way, people have already been and continue to be tracked down and attacked for doing these kinds of things (a notably incident that reached the front page of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101469), so no, the assumption that people will be attacked for doing this is most definitely not wrong.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#129

Post by teresonos »

fatjokes wrote: post #87

The people of Hong Kong are hardly winning supporters within China. Much is made of the disdain that Hong Kong people have for Chinese mainlanders, but less is mentioned that it is equally true in reverse. There is a commonly held belief (which I haven't researched and thus don't know if true or not) that they didn't make nearly as much of a ruckus when they were under British colonial rule, when they were de facto s…

> There is a commonly held belief (which I haven't researched and thus don't know if true or not) that they didn't make nearly as much of a ruckus when they were under British colonial rule

During the early years of colonization there was a ton of protests and fighting, but they were brutally suppressed by the British.

After getting rid of early activists and over 70+ years later, the quality of life improved so there were less and less complaints.

> (If you add in a racial dimension, where the Hong Kong people are Asians willing to submit to "whites" while fighting back against other Asians, adds to that disdain).

I definitely agree there is a major dose of postcolonial mentality going on among the middle-class Hongkongers.

After the rich elite either moved to the West or became chummy with China, the middle class basically moved into the second tier of the "racial hierarchy (whites & hapas > rich Hongkongers > everyone else)"

In my opinion, this seems to be more of a class struggle. I see a lot of blue collar Hongkongers being friends with Mainland Chinese. And I see a lot of intermarriage among them as well. Same as when I visited Taiwan.

I think just like British colonization took 70+ years, after China has held onto Hong Kong long enough, things will change.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#130

Post by teresonos »

steve19 wrote: post #92
fatjokes wrote: post #87

The people of Hong Kong are hardly winning supporters within China. Much is made of the disdain that Hong Kong people have for Chinese mainlanders, but less is mentioned that it is equally true in reverse. There is a commonly held belief (which I haven't researched and thus don't know if true or not) that they didn't make nearly as much of a ruckus when they were under British colonial rule, when they were de facto s…

I am not arguing for British colonization, but were they second class citizens? I believe they were British Subjects and therefor entitled to all the rights of any other British subject, or at least that of British subjects in any other British Dependent Territory.

Things got better eventually, but at the start of colonization it was basically like Jim Crow era for Hongkongers.

And even up till the 1980s, there was an undertone of white privilege, especially in Central (the business district).

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