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China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

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Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#131

Post by ipaddr »

sangnoir wrote: post #126
ipaddr wrote: post #114

In Canada media is controlled by a handful of private companies who are well connected to political factions. The public broadcaster while generally left tries to stay neutral. Small publications are ignored and usually shutout to the point of them needing to sue to ask a question. Private or public if the media is controlled by a small club of wealthy and/or connected players you have an unhealthy and not very free…

The public broadcaster is "left" by US standards , but is pretty much bang in the center for the rest of the Anglophone countries.

It would be considered left by the Anglophone community in Canada but not necessarily left by Canada as a whole because Canada is an Anglophone/Francophone country with Anglophone majority with a strong Francophone minority.

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#132

Post by jollybean »

neltnerb wrote: post #89
xtian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think people in China don't know how to use VPNs and find information on the broader Internet? They do. It seems like you may be the one living in a bubble.

Of course they do. Do you think the Chinese government can't figure out what you access via a VPN? I find it hard to be confident that the US Security Apparatus couldn't figure out what I access via VPN if they chose to. I'm not sure whether the US or the CCP would be more able to block all VPNs, but I have the feeling the answer is the latter (for legal, rather than technical reasons).

US has no technical ability to block mass numbers of connections on a selective basis. That's a 'scale' ability they don't have anything close to. I mean, possibly on some algorithmic basis, but there's no agency with the manpower to do that.

Crude operations to shut down certain parts of the web, yes. Ability to monitor individuals, yes.

But the only entity on earth that can do surveillance at scale is China. They've invented that in the modern sense.

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#133

Post by user_named »

dirtyid wrote: post #88
user_named wrote: post #2

This news story is off. Foreign entities have always been forbidden from engaging in media production and publishing in China. While the negative list is updated yearly, this isn't new.

Bloomberg links to General Market Access (MA) Negative List for all players (domestic + foreign) versus Foreign Investment (FI) access list for just foreigners. Though it was pretty much forgone PRC openning domestic service industries won't include media considering how hard NGOs were cracked down. https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/yjzxDownload/sczrfmqd2021.pdf

Okay. I was confused since the negative list that I've heard of has always been for foreign investment in China, and this list was just updated, so I assumed it was referring to this list. I was not aware of a negative list for domestic investors.

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#134

Post by jollybean »

johnebgd wrote: post #103
jollybean wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current state of Western Media is not very nice, but it is far from 'extreme'.

Tell that to Alex Jones…

Those hucksters are the price we pay for freedom of expression. In normal times, it's just a clownshow. Obviously it's more of a problem when there's a constitutional crisis, a war, or pandemic.

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#135

Post by dillondoyle »

asteroidbelt wrote: post #122
dillondoyle wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish PBS was better funded and supported, maybe look to BBC as an example to emulate. Though BBC also has non-new programming (drag race!). The problem is trusting government. I don't trust either parties here so I would lean toward a for-profit system with heavier regulation. It looks like the Fairness Doctrine is no more? Anyone have better knowledge here than I do who can give some background? From what I kind o…

BBC has shifted from being neutral in the recent years, and there are demands to stop public funding of BBC. No, BBC today is a bad example. BBC 50 years ago, I don't know.

Interesting I didn't know people wanted to defund BBC

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#136

Post by roenxi »

gruez wrote: post #18
roenxi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans don't seem to trust the press. Faith in "Mass Media" has plummeted to levels appropriate to their reliability on important issues [0]. And the media is a strange place. Something like Joe Rogan's podcast is realistically more mainstream and probably more trusted than most news programs. There will be many examples like that. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-med...

>Something like Joe Rogan's podcast is realistically more mainstream and probably more trusted than most news programs How can you "trust" a podcast that just interviews everyone and takes them at face value? Do people seriously go "yeah I heard it on joe rogan so I think it's probably true"?

How can you trust a news source that interviews everyone and selectively pushes back to construct a narrative, often in an artificially limited format that obscures nuance?

The media companies don't have any special domain experience, they've got no clear idea if what they are reporting on is true or not.

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#137

Post by powerapple »

pasabagi wrote: post #59
djohnston wrote: post #29

In the West privately funded media has increased polarisation over the last 50 years, so having stronger public investments in media could be helpful to stop this pervasive divisiveness. China has the opposite configuration where the state controls all information and you'll be re-educated if you say the wrong thing loud enough. These are both extremes that are undesirable IMO.

It's not really opposites, though. Private media is highly centralized, and the people involved are also highly involved in politics (Rupert Murdoch, for instance). In China, high up party members are generally very wealthy, and wealthy people generally are highly involved in the party, so it's the same politically-well-connected elite that would be involved in media in the west in any case - it's just backed up by f…

I think news in west is starting to see some direction for news in the future, the weight of main stream media is going downwards. It has created some problem to force them moving towards the extreme of political spectrum to be honest. News is not about reporting the facts only, it has influence and education value, it is like literature, I don't think everyone should be a teacher, and I don't think everyone should be a journalist. Especially many independent journalists would actually need to make a living with their reports, they are more likely to bend facts to please their sponsors.

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#138

Post by gremloni »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #42
djohnston wrote: post #29

In the West privately funded media has increased polarisation over the last 50 years, so having stronger public investments in media could be helpful to stop this pervasive divisiveness. China has the opposite configuration where the state controls all information and you'll be re-educated if you say the wrong thing loud enough. These are both extremes that are undesirable IMO.

I’m not sure many in the west would see divisiveness as a negative, in so much that it seems necessary to reach an stable equilibrium. Yes, one side will find the other side’s position infuriating, but China is the result of what happens when one side completely wins over the other. Because there is no equilibrium to be had, they can only emphasize unity.

It’s a question of degrees of divisiveness. If the population is divided enough to kill each other there probably needs to be some sort of regulations to temper the extremes.

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#139

Post by asteroidbelt »

dillondoyle wrote: post #135
asteroidbelt wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBC has shifted from being neutral in the recent years, and there are demands to stop public funding of BBC. No, BBC today is a bad example. BBC 50 years ago, I don't know.

Interesting I didn't know people wanted to defund BBC

Some do https://www.defundbbc.uk/

I don’t pay for TV license (out of principles) and I’m annoyed I cannot legally watch SpaceX launches live on YouTube.

Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector

#140

Post by cutemonster »

jollybean wrote: post #19
eternalban wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xi does not want power for himself. Xi wants power to remain in the hands of the party and CPC is laying the foundation of governance model for a robust state in the 21st century that also (TBD) does not inhibit economic and technological development. It is reasonable to argue against that goal (statist socialism) but imho superficial to frame this as yet another power grab by an individual. He is simply the tip of a…

You're right, I should have merely indicated the leader, not the individual, that's fair. It's unlikely that anyone really knows what Xi wants. The narrative that 'he just wants what's best for China' plays directly into his potential megalomania, at the same time, I don't doubt that there is some truth to this as well. Nations can benefit from long-lived leaders. That said, the whole thing does not look good. Action…

> what Xi wants

Highest priority: to stay in power. That China is his (he get to be the dictator) for all of his life.

Possibly thereafter: Make China stronger, economically, military, land area.

Destroying independent press damages and weakens China, but that's ok because a strong China is only 2nd priority for Xi (and his closest men I suppose).

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