China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media • Hacker News Board

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#41

Post by spectramax » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

rossenberg79 wrote: post #28

spectramax wrote: post #20

Powerful ad. My gut feeling is that there will be a day in the future where everything in China is going to boil-over just like any other totalitarian regimes in the past. It could be 20 years from now when Xi dies or some type of student uprising again, or could be from the HK/Taiwan situation. The behavior of the Chinese government and as they call it "the hand of Beijing" has a self-propelling streisand effect, th…

As westerners I feel this is natural to think, and makes sense to us, but having been in China several times I'm not so sure. The value systems in Asia are far different, and people are much more collective where as we are a more individualist society with different thoughts about individual freedom. I doubt China could have become as strong as it is today without it's long history of authoritarian regimes, and I fee…

This is not a very compelling argument - "They're different from us, therefore we are not in a position to comment." There is a tremendous understanding, analysis and comprehension of totalitarianism in the west. Even in popular culture, say 1984 by George Orwell.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#42

Post by rebuilder » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

0815test wrote: post #27

mpnordland wrote: post #19

So my guess is that Huawei will now stop partnering with them for their phones? How does China deal with this type of thing?

It's not even "China" that's directly responsible for most of these decisions, really. It's each private company individually trying to figure out how to keep the Chinese government happy and on their side. That's why these things are inherently unpredictable. Sometimes you can even see seemingly-coordinated behavior that's actually the result of bandwagoning - e.g. if one company bans "Leica" on their social media s…

That's a good point. What would it even look like if there was an official, authoritative list of things to be censored, with draconian enforcement? Xi Jinping isn't going to personally decide what goes on the list. He's certainly not going to personally adjudicate the myriad edge cases. Inevitably the system must devolve into a lot of individuals making conflicting decisions.

I see no way to have a cohesive, official censorship apparatus with centralized control, unless the method employed simply involves cutting cables. That would be pretty unambiguous.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#43

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #30

wutbrodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off the top of my head, Britain, Spain, Portugal, and Chile (and Canada and Australia, if you want to cheat). Do you really think that every liberal Western European democracy had their own version of the French Revolution, or that they've been democracies since time immemorial?

None of those places functioned as modern nation states prior to the Peace of Westphalia. Monarchies were in constant flux, collapsing all the time as brother invaded cousin and so on. How exactly does this refute my point?

[deleted]

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#44

Post by EliRivers » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #14

0815test wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The playbook of all dictatorships is the same: squeeze tighter and tighter until you can no longer hold on, then collapse. While a common-enough failure mode, this is by no means universal. Many successful monarchies began as the equivalent of dictatorships, and then opened up further and further over time.

The monarchies of old changed hands and flipped over due to war (civil and otherwise) so often that they're not really comparable to a modern state dictatorship. Tons of monarchs had extremely short reigns, far less stable than the Chinese Communist party.

Oh, yes, sure, the old "no true dictatorship" rule. Redefine your argument as you go to exclude counter-examples.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#45

Post by malwarebytess » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

0815test wrote: post #27

mpnordland wrote: post #19

So my guess is that Huawei will now stop partnering with them for their phones? How does China deal with this type of thing?

It's not even "China" that's directly responsible for most of these decisions, really. It's each private company individually trying to figure out how to keep the Chinese government happy and on their side. That's why these things are inherently unpredictable. Sometimes you can even see seemingly-coordinated behavior that's actually the result of bandwagoning - e.g. if one company bans "Leica" on their social media s…

It doesn't seem all that different from some similar events in our corporate internet ecosystem.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#46

Post by jononor » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

spectramax wrote: post #41

rossenberg79 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As westerners I feel this is natural to think, and makes sense to us, but having been in China several times I'm not so sure. The value systems in Asia are far different, and people are much more collective where as we are a more individualist society with different thoughts about individual freedom. I doubt China could have become as strong as it is today without it's long history of authoritarian regimes, and I fee…

This is not a very compelling argument - "They're different from us, therefore we are not in a position to comment." There is a tremendous understanding, analysis and comprehension of totalitarianism in the west. Even in popular culture, say 1984 by George Orwell.

The argument was not that they are different, but that they are more collectively minded and put less value in "individual freedom". Totalitarianism seems an obviously bad thing wrt to individual freedom, but if that is not so important, it may not matter as much as we westerners think it should.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#47

Post by 2bitencryption » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

efoto wrote: post #7

In an unfortunate act of self-censorship, the video has been now removed from YouTube. Update: while the video linked by the article has been removed, here it is: https://youtu.be/dQpKcw-n330

"Self-censorship" is much scarier to me than the "traditional" censorship.

It's terrible when a government takes away your voice. But it's so much worse when people do it voluntarily to avoid the consequences.

(in this case, of course Leica is a business that doesn't want to lose a market with billions of people, but still... Leicas have been used for a hundred years to expose this type of nonsense, and now they're doing this...)

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#48

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

ronilan wrote: post #13

devoply wrote: post #3

Would it not be better for these idiots to simply apologize for Tienanmen Square and promise not to do it again? And also stop all their asshole human right violations?

If you suggesting China adopts a system in which every government systematically apologizes for what previous generations have done, while laying the foundations of the next apologetic generation; then they can’t do that. It’s copyrighted by the Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada.

[deleted]

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#49

Post by malwarebytess » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

HNthrow22 wrote: post #38

Why are discussions surrounding Chinese Politics permitted but no other political discussions? Seems like a double standard. Just quickly looking at the removals here's a 4 hour old Mueller report thread instantly removed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19712217 .

Filters didn't catch it, though eventually this will be removed as well?

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#50

Post by Leary » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #15

So what's the official Chinese line on Tiananmen? Did it not happen? Was it a western plot? Student riots? Banning the word Leica seems to be implicitly admitting that it did happen, and that the Chinese government did something wrong, so I'm guessing the official story isn't the generally accepted story?

Here's the official party version of the story[1]:

Political turmoil in 1989:

"In the late 1980s, a wave of bourgeois liberalization was launched in the society. Liberalists promoted bourgeois democracy and freedom, carried out anti-Party and anti-socialist activities. Under this influence, in early April 1989, young students from some colleges and universities in Beijing carried out various forms of activities in response to real problems in the society. On April 15, the former General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Hu Yaobang passed away. The masses and young students held various forms of mourning activities. However, very few liberals used this opportunity to engage in anti-party and anti-socialist activities. Under their instigation, students from some universities in the capital and local areas flocked to the streets to hold demonstrations. Some unscrupulous elements in Xi'an and Changsha took the opportunity to fight, smash, rob, and burn. The student movement quickly developed into social unrest. On April 26, the People’s Daily published an editorial entitled “There must be a clear-cut against social unrest”, pointing out that this was a planned conspiracy. The essence of this movement was to fundamentally negate the party’s leadership and deny the socialist system.The editorial called on everyone to take urgent action and take resolute and effective measures to stop the unrest. However, the situation has not improved. On the evening of May 19, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to impose martial law in parts of the capital, but a few rioters incited some people to confront the martial law forces. At the same time, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places have also experienced serious incidents such as thugs hitting party and government organs and damaging transportation facilities. In this regard, the Party Central Committee, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission took decisive measures to calm the riots. This political storm has destroyed China’s normal social order, disrupted the normal economic construction process, and caused great losses to the party, the country and the people. The victory over social unrest and counter-revolutionary riots has consolidated the achievements of our country's socialist position and the decade of reform and opening up, and has also provided useful lessons for the party and the people."

[1] http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/33837/2535031.html