Headline should be: Chia baed letter from iteret after people used it to attack Xi Jipig
China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
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Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#12Government censorship is no fun, but the best part about this article for me was learning that Xi Jinping is sometimes compared to Winnie the Pooh. The comparison picture is dead on.
Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#13The really scary part of that article is the screenshot of Weibo with every message censored automatically with "content is illegal".
If you think this sort of thing could never happen in the west, I think you're underestimating how quickly it could happen. The constitutions and bills of rights of any country are not laws of nature that can't be broken- they're words on paper that governments or populist movements can easily ignore.
Consider any politician you disagree with deeply and ask yourself: if they could ban dissent from their views, wouldn't they?
Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#14Headline should be: Chia baed letter from iteret after people used it to attack Xi Jipig
It should be called a "headlie" as well, which could be a more fitting word for it anyway depending on which news outlet you visit.
Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#15The really scary part of that article is the screenshot of Weibo with every message censored automatically with "content is illegal". If you think this sort of thing could never happen in the west, I think you're underestimating how quickly it could happen. The constitutions and bills of rights of any country are not laws of nature that can't be broken- they're words on paper that governments or populist movements ca…
Try sending a piratebay URL on Facebook Messenger... nope! "Malicious website! Please calm down while we protect you!" (I paraphrase...).
Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#16The really scary part of that article is the screenshot of Weibo with every message censored automatically with "content is illegal". If you think this sort of thing could never happen in the west, I think you're underestimating how quickly it could happen. The constitutions and bills of rights of any country are not laws of nature that can't be broken- they're words on paper that governments or populist movements ca…
One advantage we have here is that the government is separated enough from the people who have actual executive power to ban content. A sudden ban is quite impossible but we should probably be beware of being a slowly cooked frog.
Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#17It is funny, just yesterday I read Victor Mair's reasoning why "n" might have been banned [1]: "This is probably out of fear on the part of the government that "N" = "n terms in office", where possibly n > 2; as in "liánrèn n jiè 连任n届" ("n successive terms in office"), which would be forbidden anyway because of the liánrèn 连任 ("continue in office") part." I don't know any Mandarin or Cantonese, but this seems like a…
The most likely explanation that sprang to mind was that there’s a convention in Chinese for (young) people to say ‘n’ meaning ‘lots’. ie:
A: Have you been to Disney? B: OMG, only like, n times!
(A: 你去过迪斯尼吗？ B: 哎呀我去n次啦)
edit: so i’m confirming Mair’s guess.
Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#18Government censorship is no fun, but the best part about this article for me was learning that Xi Jinping is sometimes compared to Winnie the Pooh. The comparison picture is dead on. https://twitter.com/vinayak_jain/status/899886641157783553
This one's so much better: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/07/17/15/426A9E150000057...
Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#19This kind of chicanery shows up at every point in monarchical rule...one would have anticipated it to be a bit more delayed in this case given how recent the abolition of the term limit has been
Term limits are a check-and-balance against this sort of silliness. The divine inspiration cited by George W Bush for example to invade the middle east was no guarantee that the US would continue the practice of seeking holy affirmation to invade a country. Abolition of the term limit disrupts international confidence in a parties ability to advance domestic and foreign policy as now, you've pinned yourself to a single dependency in the government.
Re: China banned letter N from internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping
#20The really scary part of that article is the screenshot of Weibo with every message censored automatically with "content is illegal". If you think this sort of thing could never happen in the west, I think you're underestimating how quickly it could happen. The constitutions and bills of rights of any country are not laws of nature that can't be broken- they're words on paper that governments or populist movements ca…
> they're words on paper that governments or populist movements can easily ignore
For example, China's constitution also contains "Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration."
However various words and phrases to even mention Article 35 itself are banned in some chat apps, etc... in China even though the full text of the constitution is available anyways.