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China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

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Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#131

Post by arcticfox »

aw3c2 wrote: post #98
yorwba wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was probably necessary due to instances where someone rented an AirBnB apartment under a fake identity, and then proceeded to completely trash the apartment. In cases like this, where anonymity allows users to cause serious damage without repercussions, I don't think identity requirements are problematic. However, extending this to harmless actions like commenting online is a completely different thing.

People can use commenting to call for genocide or push people into suicide, they can use communication to plot terrorist attacks, etc. The only difference is that it is not physical damage. I support anonymity, I hated what Airbnb made me do in terms of insecure exposing of my identify to them (and then had I use an empty gmail account to verify in the end).

I don't understand how you can expect to be anonymous in a service where the point is to physically show up. There are all sorts of practical safety considerations that don't apply to other services.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#132

Post by beojan »

gergdgdfg wrote: post #125

I grew up in China and came to the U.S. more than 10 years ago. What I have been seeing is the decline of the United States. That's said, I'm worrying about China a lot more. I think it's on track to repeat the mistakes it had done before. You often see articles here saying China will surpass the States in A.I. and science. I doubt it. I doubt a country without freely accessible information will be competent. I doubt…

> Who will be replacing the States? Europe is weak and is at its bottom, Russia is no better than China. Maybe Australia or Canada.

Their population is much too small.

In the case of science, if anyone surpasses the US, it'll be Europe. However, the trend now is toward co-operation rather than competition.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#133

Post by coldtea »

larvaetron wrote: post #101
Banthum wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's right-wingers, it'll be terrorism and "think of the children". If it's left-wingers, it'll be hate speech and "think of the women/minorities". Same outcome, of course.

I wouldn't classify "think of the children" as a right-wingers' club - Tipper Gore co-founded the PMRC.

I wouldn't classify Tipper Gore as left wing either.

Whether Democrats are they are hardly left wing, and somebody who would found PMRC even less so...

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#134

Post by coldtea »

losteric wrote: post #106
Myrmornis wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nowadays a great deal of censorship from the left in America. For example, shutting down of talks like https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/richard-...

And there is plenty of opposition from "the left" itself against that kind of censorship

Whereas there's no opposition from "the right" against the Nazis for examples?

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#135

Post by coldtea »

neya wrote: post #5

There are a dozen popular live streaming apps in China where one can simply just stream what you're doing to everyone on the site and people can just watch them for hours. You can think of it like Instagram stories or Snapchat per se. Or even Facebook live. This isn't some western media propaganda. I tried one of them very recently (I don't want to give them any undeserved marketing), they allowed me to sign up and t…

>Only the Chinese government can get away with something unbelievable like these regulations

The US and EU have tons of those sort of things. Patriot Act? Mass surveillance programs? Required ID to get a mobile connection? UK's largest number of CCTVs on any place on earth?

Heck, in the US they can trial you as an adult at 15 and send you to war at 17 but you need to be over 21 and show ID to drink a beer at a bar...

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#136

Post by klibertp »

gergdgdfg wrote: post #125

I grew up in China and came to the U.S. more than 10 years ago. What I have been seeing is the decline of the United States. That's said, I'm worrying about China a lot more. I think it's on track to repeat the mistakes it had done before. You often see articles here saying China will surpass the States in A.I. and science. I doubt it. I doubt a country without freely accessible information will be competent. I doubt…

> Europe is weak and is at its bottom

Weak in what sense?

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#137

Post by bryananderson »

chairmanwow wrote: post #45

I'm frightened by how a seemingly pragmatic government has been able to spiral into dogmatic, protectionists policies so rapidly. I suppose that I mistook the recent decades of economic development as evidence of true ideological reform taking place. Now I feel naive for expecting more from the government that imprisoned the father of their ubiquitous high speed rail system. The Eastern desire to require "harmonious…

They're still being pragmatic - they're trying to stay in power.

China is ruled by a one-party oligarchy that acts pragmatically in its own interest, not in the people's. A China with higher risk of regime change - even if it's a stronger and more prosperous China - is not in their interest.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#138

Post by grzm »

pas wrote: post #130
grzm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course the national defense agencies were so dumb they haven't noticed that a few guys registered hudreds of thoudands of accounts. Would you elaborate more on the background of this? Were the SIM cards sold and registered with a private company? I would suspect it is (or they were, if more than one). Which national defense agencies are you referring to? Did the national defense agencies search these records? Do…

http://budapestbeacon.com/news-in-brief/counter-terrorism-ce... https://english.atlatszo.hu/2016/11/08/illegal-trade-of-burn... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-05/deutsche-... In the communications act there was a provision about suspicious registrations reporting requirement. The big providers (like Telekom, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom) have a well established working relationship with the defen…

Thanks for the links. Assuming close cooperation between the telecom companies and the national security agencies is the direction you want things to go, there's definitely room for improvement. In the Bloomberg article, improvement is what's happening.

Expecting perfection out of the gate--or even at any given time--is setting someone up for failure. If this is something you care about, what you can focus on is that they're making changes to improve the situation: they're actively responding to correcting and preventing these kinds of mistakes in the future. Unless they're omniscient and omnipotent, it's really all they can do. This applies to work in general, not just security.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#139

Post by klibertp »

abpavel wrote: post #92
bitL wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it comes to having the same legislation in the UK, it'd likely ban decentralized web as well, perhaps requiring submitting your ID upon connecting to Internet every single time.

you do have to provide your ID to connect to the Internet, except for the prepaid anonymous sim cards paid for in cash.

Which are unavailable in many EU countries already.

Practically the only way of connecting anonymously to the Internet is the old-fashioned wardriving, or getting lucky and finding a "free wifi" which is not limited to the Web only.

Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting

#140

Post by guscost »

gergdgdfg wrote: post #125

I grew up in China and came to the U.S. more than 10 years ago. What I have been seeing is the decline of the United States. That's said, I'm worrying about China a lot more. I think it's on track to repeat the mistakes it had done before. You often see articles here saying China will surpass the States in A.I. and science. I doubt it. I doubt a country without freely accessible information will be competent. I doubt…

I'm cynical about a lot of things, like our dysfunctional mess of a government, a Fortune 500 saturated with exploitative bullshit, and the silly summer-camp that college has turned into. And people have been telling me about the decline of America for my whole life (admittedly not a long life). But I think they are just overwhelmed with worry because we have access to so much information, and I think America easily has another couple hundred years of prosperity ahead, even if it won't be smooth sailing the whole time.
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