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US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

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Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#201

Post by Flowsion »

mthoms wrote: post #171
gambiting wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, is it really such a rare thing to do? I know that in Poland if you have any outstanding and overdue unpaid fines/alimonies/traffic tickets, you will be prevented from boarding a flight out of the country at any airport until those obligations are paid.

You're missing the point. People are being accused for crimes they (more than likely) didn't commit and denied basic human rights. They face a 99% conviction rate in the Chinese courts. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-charges-...

>For 2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 93% conviction rate.

Japan also looks like it has a 99% conviction rate. Most countries have the ability to exit-ban foreigners visiting their country. It's not unique to China at all. US does it. Canada does it. South Korea does it.

I think the warning from the US Government is that, in their opinion, China will illegally detain you over made up charges, be careful.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#202

Post by FpUser »

fermienrico wrote: post #157

Deleting this comment - I will email dang.

>"It is not too difficult for a foreign power to get 300 accounts on HN with 300 IPs, and have a farm of employees manipulating votes on HN"

It does not have to be "foreign power". To me it looks like HN has groups of "concerned participants" on either side of a fence.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#203

Post by darawk »

fermienrico wrote: post #185
notaround1111 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also noticed a large influx of new accounts posting low quality, politically charged comments in the past few months. You can find plenty of those in this thread. I think its pretty likely that we're headed for an extinction type event for upvote based "anonymous" message boards like HN, reddit ... or at least a significant decline in their usefulness

What's a good alternative architecture that promotes quality content/comments and prevents regression short of manual compilation, moderation and curation? Edit: Jotting down some ideas: 1) Occlude/Delude/Fog-up the votes for newly created accounts. Mature accounts get to see gray posts. 2) Consesus amongst mature accounts has higher weight over newly created accounts. 3) Penalty for being flagged is higher for matur…

I think you essentially need something pseudonymous and reputation based. Something where getting banned has a reasonably high cost in terms of re-acquiring reputation required to post.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#204

Post by kolanos »

koheripbal wrote: post #183
mthoms wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. People are being accused for crimes they (more than likely) didn't commit and denied basic human rights. They face a 99% conviction rate in the Chinese courts. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-charges-...

What do you think the conviction rates in western courts are? It's pretty close to 99% as well.

Was curious, so looked it up:

> In 2018, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that among defendants charged with a felony, 68% were convicted (59% of a felony and the remainder of a misdemeanor) with felony conviction rates highest for defendants originally charged with motor vehicle theft (74%), driving-related offenses (73%), murder (70%), burglary (69%), and drug trafficking (67%); and lowest for defendants originally charged with assault (45%).

China's rate in 2014 was 99.9%.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#205

Post by isoprophlex »

pizza wrote: post #194
mthoms wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally just made that up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate

So is 93% (DoJ, 2012) far or close to 99%?

13 out of 14, or 99 out of 100.

You be the judge.

Edit: more like 999 out of 1000 as per that wiki page:

> In China, the justice system has a conviction rate of 99.9% in 2014.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#206

Post by Redoubts »

notaround1111 wrote: post #178
fermienrico wrote: post #157

Deleting this comment - I will email dang.

I've also noticed a large influx of new accounts posting low quality, politically charged comments in the past few months. You can find plenty of those in this thread. I think its pretty likely that we're headed for an extinction type event for upvote based "anonymous" message boards like HN, reddit ... or at least a significant decline in their usefulness

"I've also noticed a large influx of new accounts posting low quality, politically charged comments in the past few months."

This is why you should flag every political submission to HN.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#207

Post by ddona »

koheripbal wrote: post #183
mthoms wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. People are being accused for crimes they (more than likely) didn't commit and denied basic human rights. They face a 99% conviction rate in the Chinese courts. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-charges-...

What do you think the conviction rates in western courts are? It's pretty close to 99% as well.

Moved off the front page quickly...Gone!

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#208

Post by ddona »

yongjik wrote: post #200
fermienrico wrote: post #157

Deleting this comment - I will email dang.

I just reloaded the page and, let me see the top comments: 1. Note that US citizens have long been warned about stuff like this ... 2. I just noticed - all anti China comments were heavily upvoted but just in last 30 mins ... (this comment thread) 3. Not just arrested but tortured ... 4. This is bad for Canadians recently, with many arrests and accusations of spying ... 5. I've visited China nearly every year for the…

Moved off the front page quickly...Gone!

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#209

Post by fermienrico »

yongjik wrote: post #200
fermienrico wrote: post #157

Deleting this comment - I will email dang.

I just reloaded the page and, let me see the top comments: 1. Note that US citizens have long been warned about stuff like this ... 2. I just noticed - all anti China comments were heavily upvoted but just in last 30 mins ... (this comment thread) 3. Not just arrested but tortured ... 4. This is bad for Canadians recently, with many arrests and accusations of spying ... 5. I've visited China nearly every year for the…

I am seeing the same that you're seeing now. Those grayed comments are back to black.

Why do we even have such a huge oscillation? I am extremely suspicious but cautious with allegation without data.

What I am sure of is the following:

Comments start out positive, then comes the hammer and they go extremely gray (the lightest color and bottom out at -4?) and then we have them back to normal levels. This is a really concerning behavior. If we had a plot of vote vs. time, we'd see this hammer come down. I strongly suspect.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#210

Post by fermienrico »

FpUser wrote: post #202
fermienrico wrote: post #157

Deleting this comment - I will email dang.

> "It is not too difficult for a foreign power to get 300 accounts on HN with 300 IPs, and have a farm of employees manipulating votes on HN" It does not have to be "foreign power". To me it looks like HN has groups of "concerned participants" on either side of a fence.

There is no data to prove my assertion and your rebuttal.
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