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Steam has been banned in China

thegamer.com

161–170 of 533 posts

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#162

What will happen to Chinese games on Steam? I will be profoundly sad if they disappear. For example: Dyson Sphere Program is one of my favorite games of all time. If that's gone, I'm going to have a hard time not making the CCP my mortal enemy

> If that's gone, I'm going to have a hard time not making the CCP my mortal enemy

Wouldn't be a bad choice, regardless of what happens with Steam.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where she lived. Beijing, Shanghai and other first tier cities are ok for foreigners. The further away you get, the more blurry situation gets.

Quoted post unavailable.

What? The US doesn't require anyone to register with the local government when traveling, foreigner or US citizen. Where are you getting this kind of misinformation?

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a small minority of college educated youth that speak english and are able to use VPNs to bypass GFW.

I might be wrong, or it may changed in the meantime, but I had the impression that VPN traffic is also slowed down extremely. While it allows you to connect to any foreign service, it's so slow as to be nearly useless. I only tried VPN services that were located outside China though. Maybe there are Chinese VPN services which have a 'fast route' to the outside world (I'd be very surprised if this is legal though).

When I lived in China I rented a server in Hong Kong and ran OpenVPN, that pretty much worked fine. Back then VPNs weren't technically illegal I believe but that's changed in recent years. Major VPN providers would stop working for periods of time because China would keep blocking IPs.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really love how we all have an impression of China as a country without access to global internet, but then there are things like "Most Chinese Steam users have historically been using the global service instead". Really makes you want to visit and see how this actually works for yourself. The more I read about China, the more unbelievably contradictive it gets.

IME the Great Firewall doesn't outright block global traffic apart from some selected services, but makes them so unreliable and slow that it's almost impossible to directly connect and use services from the other side (think 'analog modem speed'), companies (maybe just IT companies, not sure) can get an exemption (they need to connect to github after all), but even then it's not very reliable. If Steam had a working…

There are no such exemptions, and I don't know from where did this idea came

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#166
post #63
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, some high end hotels did provide unfettered access to the Internet for some reason, so I guess anyone could go there and browse Facebook for the price of an expensive coffee. Practically everybody who is knowledgeable with computers uses a VPN - restrictions are only for "the plebs"

Whenever I read about countries banning sites, people post "just use a VPN, lol". But I wonder: If China really wants to, couldn't they just block VPNs? At the worst, just whitelist a bunch of sites and services and literally block everything else?

They do. They fingerprint for OpenVPN in real time and block it. In 2018 I was cycling through multiple VPNs at a time. The only thing that worked was Shadowsocks.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#167
post #25

What is going on here with the comment section? Seems like it's flooded with pro ccp activists

I am European and not affiliated in any way with China. And don't want to whitewash them.

Still, there is a double standard regarding China vs the Western World. While China gets (IMHO deserved) criticism for their territorial claims and human right abuse, the Iraq War (over 400k deaths) was "business as usual".

The same goes with anti-pandemic restrictions - when it happens in China, it's an authoritarian rule. When in the West - it's social responsibility. When China started vaccinating children, I saw an article with "child soldiers" and a photo of a crying kid. The same action in the West had a picture of a smiling kid, and a more welcoming title.

Or even when it comes to pollution and worker's rights, the West is hypocritical. Blames China, while happily outsources most heavy industry there, due to lower costs. (When was the last time you bought some electronics and there were not "Manufactured in PRL"?)

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#168
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really love how we all have an impression of China as a country without access to global internet, but then there are things like "Most Chinese Steam users have historically been using the global service instead". Really makes you want to visit and see how this actually works for yourself. The more I read about China, the more unbelievably contradictive it gets.

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see, like VICE did in Xinjiang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ That being said, if you go then please try to walk into a random h…

On a lower frequency, this similar to why I'm not interested in tourism as "self-discovery", "new experience", or some shit, like the rest of the world is just stage and props for my existential theatre. I'm not gonna change as a human unless I actually move there to live permanently. Even worse, the middle-class trend to make the number of distinct places you've visited some form of social currency ("how many stamps are in your passport?").

I remember this sales guy who always made it a point to tell every woman he talked to that he did Peace Corps in Africa and how it changed him working with Africans. Like, you could've just volunteered somewhere on the south side of the city if you really wanted to help some African folk.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We love China too, just not the communist party. I lived in singapore for 10 years until recently moving to Taiwan, this is basically the view of everyone from China I met. “I love China but I hate the government, that’s why I left” It’s a shame because the actions of the CCP are making people blame Chinese people. But the majority of people from China that I’ve met are awesome.

Well yeah, you're self selecting for people who a. Left China b. Are talking to a foreigner about politics CCP maintains considerable support among the mainland population.

Well we don’t know what the support is truly like inside China. But I think it’s safe to assume that there are a lot of people inside china who unfortunately do not have the luxury of being able to move their family overseas.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#170
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must offer another data point. I'm British, and often find myself in these threads criticising criticism of China. Not because I'm being paid by the CCP, but because I believe that mainstream anti-Chinese sentiment tells us more about the West's psychological struggles to come to terms with its own historically unprecedented imperial past, than it does about China itself.

Not being OK with the myriad of human rights abuses the Chinese government commits - sometimes "silently" and sometimes very opening and outright proudly - is just because I struggle with my own regions history? What the actual fuck... I have to call your "theory" what it is: stupid and dangerous - and whataboutism on top.

To give a metaphor, I think it is perfectly reasonable to criticise my project lead when she criticises me for not meeting my targets but turns up hungover and spends the whole day on Facebook.

I am criticising her because I want her to be effective at her job. Not because I disagree with her about our team's laziness.

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