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China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#161

Post by dv_dt »

bryananderson wrote: post #130

This event is an amazing lesson in what China's rulers see as their interests and how they pursue those interests. Over the last several decades, these rulers have done a lot to open China to the world and lift the totalitarian restrictions of Maoism. This process has been the greatest poverty reduction program of all time, and thus it would be easy to mistake it for altruism, or at least a belief in governing in the…

China is still in the range of development where it's pretty easy to make the case that raising the wealth of its people aligns with increasing the power and wealth of its rulers. An interesting question is how long those interests stay merged.

I suspect it isn't ultimately driven from a political power calculation, but on what areas of open growth are available. Cutting off WhatsApp keeps open growth available in that area internal to the nation. But as areas close off and get filled, economies have to start making harder choices about where to put effort. It's easy to commit to long-term society wide efforts when it's easy to forsee improvements _and_ personal profits. But as choices get harder to forecast and make good on, will China start looking shorter term and with a more narrowly focused self service scope as many western economic leaders have done.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#162

Post by HillaryBriss »

ben_jones wrote: post #87
Jerry2 wrote: post #65

TechAltar made a video few days ago about censorship in China and what their goals are [0]. He also talked about lengths to which Mark Zuckerberg went to try to get Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp unblocked in China. It was quite shocking. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swuir_7YIPs

The 5 points according to the video: 1) Married Priscilla Chan 2) Learned Mandarin 3) Joined Tsinghua University 4) Befriended Xijinping 5) Offered to let Xijinping name firstborn Personally I have trouble believing 1 and 5 were to get Facebook products into China unabridged. 5 sounds like a joke at a dinner party.

if 5 were true (though i doubt it) it would make for a pretty sad conversation between Mr. Zuckerberg and their firstborn some day. i mean, c'mon. have some class. it's a move worthy of our current president.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#163

Post by a1371 »

Certhas wrote: post #117
chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

Alternative: Innovation happens within the context of Chinas censorship and political regime. Blocking of entrenched western competitors allows home grown solutions to spring up, and local technological know how to develop faster. Capitalism and innovation turn out to work within the context of an illiberal society just fine. Especially as China avoids the mistake of closing itself off to the rest of the world, but s…

I think this alternative is more reasonable. Those who think China is just a copying machine, underestimate the influence the Chinese engineers had in the landscape of many industries. The hoverboards (the type with wheels) became a household product thanks to them.

Conceptualization is not making something actually happen, unlike what the patent-trolls want us to believe. IoT was first proposed in the 90s, but did it gain any traction before cheap Chinese prototyping components? This bares the question, is it the West that has made IoT or the East?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#164

Post by meri_dian »

gerbilly wrote: post #93
meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

I know you didn't intend your comment this way, but I see it as a bit patronizing to assume that just because China hasn't produced a Rousseau or a Hobbes domestically[1], that they couldn't possibly take new ideas from them. Asia is about a lot more than social harmony and the mandate of heaven. There is an incredible diversity of opinion on almost any subject there, just as in the West. [1] Citation needed.

Well they could take new ideas from them, but it's much easier said than done. The philosophical, historical and cultural framework that allowed the thought of Rousseau and Hobbes to spread in the West does not exist in China.

Interestingly this also partly explains why totalitarian Communism spread easily in China... Chinese culture was conducive to that philosophy.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#165

Post by majormajor »

Certhas wrote: post #117
chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

Alternative: Innovation happens within the context of Chinas censorship and political regime. Blocking of entrenched western competitors allows home grown solutions to spring up, and local technological know how to develop faster. Capitalism and innovation turn out to work within the context of an illiberal society just fine. Especially as China avoids the mistake of closing itself off to the rest of the world, but s…

> Especially as China avoids the mistake of closing itself off to the rest of the world, but stays integrated in the markets, as well as the academic exchanges.

So if the strategy is have-our-cake-and-eat-it-too why does the rest of the world play along? Corporate greed outside the control of governmental entities?

Like the parent and unlike the grandparent, I'm not convinced "openness" of the sort that fosters innovation requires liberal societal values. Openness in terms of not being legally restricted from copying and improving on existing products is the bigger one there, and China has this in spades. It's similar to the industrializing United States in the 19th century, which went from copying industrialized England to surpassing it - would less free political speech have stopped that?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#166

Post by FabHK »

mattmurdog wrote: post #148
bad_user wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China might build their own products and I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives, but I won't install Chinese alternatives to WhatsApp on my phone, which means the Chinese won't be able to talk with me, an European, all the while I'm communicating without issues with acquaintances from all over Europe and the U.S. This means that the Chinese are living in a bubble. This isn't news of course. But the other issue…

They already have an alternative it's called WeChat. Maybe other people should install that instead?

It's way more powerful than WhatsApp, too (location based chats, payments, etc.). And, of course, it's not E2E encrypted; just the opposite, you can assume that it's being wiretapped/monitored.

Thus, please don't install it.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#167

Post by wybiral »

lumberjack wrote: post #138
chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

Sorry, I have to disagree. How do you suppose more innovation would have happened if instead of China, blocking US tech, they let them have the whole market from the get go and instead of WeChat there would be Whatsapp and instead of Baidu, there would be Google? How is that more innovation? You can just look at Europe. I'm not advocating any policies or supporting anyone. I am just disputing the claim that free mark…

> instead of WeChat there would be Whatsapp and > instead of Baidu, there would be Google

I think that's the kind of thing that the parent poster meant with this phrase:

> The end result is that China's fate as being > relegated to being the world's giant copy machine

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#168

Post by varjag »

mattmurdog wrote: post #148
bad_user wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China might build their own products and I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives, but I won't install Chinese alternatives to WhatsApp on my phone, which means the Chinese won't be able to talk with me, an European, all the while I'm communicating without issues with acquaintances from all over Europe and the U.S. This means that the Chinese are living in a bubble. This isn't news of course. But the other issue…

They already have an alternative it's called WeChat. Maybe other people should install that instead?

So far they had little success convincing the rest of the world using the tech that only a Communist mother would love.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#169

Post by seanmcdirmid »

rubenbe wrote: post #106
hellofunk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what is the difference between "Facebook was already blocked" and "Don't even think about Facebook", other than 5 years?

There is no real difference, I kinda wanted to stress that no site ever gets unblocked (AFAIK).

CNN was blocked in 2002 (Tiananmen square was still fresh in people's minds) and isn't blocked today (CNN is a shadow of its former self, not very threatening). Ironically, because CNN was blocked, I started reading New York Times, which today IS blocked.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#170

Post by jackpirate »

dmix wrote: post #43
meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

> It's important for Westerners to realize that the Chinese never had a Locke, or a Rousseau, or a Hobbes. Neither did South America but they were inspired by all of them when they formed their modern republics after the various revolutions, after kicking out the Spanish rulers in the 1800s the military generals had a choice to form democracies and they sought inspiration from Europe, just as America did a century ea…

>Neither did South America

What are you talking about? South America was colonized by the Portuguese and Spanish, which most definitely come from the western liberal tradition.

It's fine to take a position against "Chinese culture", but it should be an honest one.

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