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WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

reuters.com

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Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#161

Post by dirtyid »

magicsmoke wrote: post #154
dirtyid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exclusively consume the cultural products of the West There's more penetration of western media and products in PRC, but vast majority of consumption is still domestic even among educated. And trends show the young are more nationalistic than ever, especially among those with more exposure to the west. >North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated. Yeah, folks are embarass…

On the one hand, they're right to cringe at the tone-deaf socialist era government communist propaganda. "How do you do fellow kids" with a communist flare. Clearly produced by cadres in their 60s in a communist bubble. On the other hand, the current nationalist Chinese bubble is not that much better. Listening practice on Bilibili would be a lot better without the equally tone deaf comments about how all their neigh…

Nationalists everywhere are insufferable. The aspiration for "lovable" PRC propanda is just aspirational. IMO very little chance PRC will be able to out-propagandize west/US especially among west/US aligned partners. Language/cultural divide too big. I think domestically people will just settle for less cringy interntionational rhetoric, which itself is a losing game since western media will interpret translations with liberty regardless. It doesn't matter that PRC citizens are relatively apolitical on the whole, with 1.4B population statistics there's will always be too many absurd nationals to paint narrative. Really PRC strategy of maintaining different internet/cultural bubbles and targetting msgs at more receptive Chinese diasphora audiences is on point. Once attempt at "lovable" propaganda fails, PRC will pursue Russia style disinformation because ultimately that's whats most pragmatic given the divide and realities of competition. Also more of those PRC cartoons that called out western hypocrisy that was well recieved domestically and made western media look ridiculous by coordinated labelling them photographs. Or calling out Canadian indigenous drama, Australia enviromentalism etc, stuff that has had more ramifcations on the domestic politics of Canada and Australia leaders than west pressing on XJ/HK/Tibet, which Xi doesn't lose sleep over.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#162

Post by cyanydeez »

throwaway4good wrote: post #2

"Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday amid widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory crackdowns on high-growth sectors, including online platforms and, most recently, private tutoring. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 4.2%." Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock market might react.

the stock market in china is not a free market.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#163

Post by tablespoon »

lmm wrote: post #160
bllguo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this is a productive point. "Democracy is best" is 1) what the US government wants you to think, and 2) an idea that they can manipulate the information environment to promote.

Can they? The US government has very limited "hard" control over what information is published, e.g. there are no banned books in the US and it would be impractical for the government to try to impose any such ban, in stark contrast to the PRC.

>>> I don't see how this is a productive point. "Democracy is best" is 1) what the US government wants you to think, and 2) an idea that they can manipulate the information environment to promote.

>> I don't see how this is a productive point. "Democracy is best" is 1) what the US government wants you to think, and 2) an idea that they can manipulate the information environment to promote.

> Can they? The US government has very limited "hard" control over what information is published, e.g. there are no banned books in the US and it would be impractical for the government to try to impose any such ban, in stark contrast to the PRC.

Yeah, the massive amount of information control in China has no parallel in the US:

1. Almost all media is state-owned, and those that aren't are required to follow state directives about what and what not to cover (https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/directives-from-the-mini...)

2. Huge numbers of people employed to implement social media censorship (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firew...: "A considerable amount of censorship is conducted through the manual deletion of posts, and an estimated 100,000 people are employed by both the government and private companies to do just this.")

3. Ditto for books and other publications (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_China#Mainl...: apropos quote "In 2021, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China announced a ban on books in school libraries that engage in 'Western veneration'").

4. Requirements that every single website account, network connection, and phone number be traceable to an particular individual's ID (typically implemented by requiring phone number validation). This encourages self-censorship (https://www.lawfareblog.com/shrinking-anonymity-chinese-cybe...).

5. The actual 50 cent party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party)

6. Etc.

Sure you can mad-lib a Western country into my comment, but the comparison is facile.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#164

Post by nichtich »

tablespoon wrote: post #106
sudosysgen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this position is very valuable. By far the best way for us to effect change in China politically, and every other major ideologically opposed nation, is to effect change at home, and be so sucessful that the superiority of our approach cannot be refuted. Bonus point that there is a lot less chance of war this way.

> I think this position is very valuable. By far the best way for us to effect change in China politically, and every other major ideologically opposed nation, is to effect change at home, and be so sucessful that the superiority of our approach cannot be refuted. I don't think so. Fixing domestic problems is a worthy goal, but it's wishful thinking to believe it will do anything to "effect change in China politicall…

For US it will. People in the US seldom think about just how powerful their media environment and general influence is. Like women have been sexually harassed since forever in China, and it's the #MeToo movement that led to a lot of the victim to stand up and people to support them.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#165

Post by tablespoon »

bllguo wrote: post #126
tablespoon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This falls flat for me. So the implication is that there are no educated Chinese today with exposure to liberal democracy? I think we take for granted the supposed superiority of a system that empirically has delivered many recent failures. I'm not saying "no exposure," I'm saying they were "better exposed" in the past. You can even see changes like that happening in Hong Kong now, under the new crackdown on civil…

my experience is obviously anecdotal but interactions with Western-educated Chinese immigrants, many of whom left in the 80s and 90s, suggest that "democracy is the best" is not some universal wisdom that people will naturally converge to If it were solely between these two choices? I'm not exactly ecstatic about these options, but I would. The fact that someone like Trump could come to power here - a fact that we, a…

> The fact that someone like Trump could come to power here - a fact that we, amazingly, seem to be trying to sweep under the rug - says this system is a complete failure....

That's unhelpful hyperbole. Trump was an idiot with charisma, but by way of comparison, he caused nowhere near the damage to the US that Mao did to China.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#166

Post by onethought »

nerbert wrote: post #150
onethought wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only some companies… logically assess what you are saying: for all business, government has board representation!? How would that scale? Where would the government get that kind is workforce?

How does it scale? Membership (2021) 95,148,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party Seems to scale pretty well.

They are communist party members. Not Board members of businesses... That number includes anyone from a high school kids to Taxi Drivers.

Are you suggesting that High school kids and taxi drivers would be effective board members?

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#167

Post by bllguo »

tablespoon wrote: post #165
bllguo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my experience is obviously anecdotal but interactions with Western-educated Chinese immigrants, many of whom left in the 80s and 90s, suggest that "democracy is the best" is not some universal wisdom that people will naturally converge to If it were solely between these two choices? I'm not exactly ecstatic about these options, but I would. The fact that someone like Trump could come to power here - a fact that we, a…

> The fact that someone like Trump could come to power here - a fact that we, amazingly, seem to be trying to sweep under the rug - says this system is a complete failure.... That's unhelpful hyperbole. Trump was an idiot with charisma, but by way of comparison, he caused nowhere near the damage to the US that Mao did to China.

the fact that a conman with ties to organized crime and indebted to foreign governments could ever assume the highest political office in this country is a complete disgrace. he was _voted_ in!

it scares me to think about what a more devious version of him could have accomplished. i think he would have caused untold amounts more damage if he were empowered to do so - credit to the US system neutering him then, I suppose I must concede that

i think it is disingenuous to bring up mao in comparison anyway, china today is vastly different politically

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#168

Post by bllguo »

lmm wrote: post #160
bllguo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this is a productive point. "Democracy is best" is 1) what the US government wants you to think, and 2) an idea that they can manipulate the information environment to promote.

Can they? The US government has very limited "hard" control over what information is published, e.g. there are no banned books in the US and it would be impractical for the government to try to impose any such ban, in stark contrast to the PRC.

the methods are clearly not as explicit and the US tolerates more diversity of thought on a lot of topics, but it absolutely exerts control over ideas it deems important. it's pretty hard to come out of our education system thinking poorly of ancient greece and rome, the liberal tradition, etc.

also note that the bar for success is a lot lower when up to 49% dissent is acceptable

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#169

Post by dv_dt »

mc32 wrote: post #16
throwaway4good wrote: post #2

"Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday amid widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory crackdowns on high-growth sectors, including online platforms and, most recently, private tutoring. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 4.2%." Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock market might react.

Naively, it looks like the CCP sees the influence and heft US tech exercises on the US population and world at large. The CCP will forgo economic might (in this sector) for social stability and control every time. They do not want these titans to have more power or influence than they have so they rein them in and let them know who holds the straps.

By reining in large corporations which may optimize for their own profits over social good and even economic competition may result in stronger long term economic might.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#170

Post by ffggvv »

paganel wrote: post #6
throwaway4good wrote: post #2

"Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday amid widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory crackdowns on high-growth sectors, including online platforms and, most recently, private tutoring. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 4.2%." Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock market might react.

> with complete disregard on how the stock market might react. I personally regard this as a positive fact, and I'm generally against the policies of the current Chinese authorities. The stock market should not be the be-all and end-all of our modern society.

very large percentages of the country have stock portfolios, at the very least via a company 401k.

when stocks are up they feel richer and spend more money at stores etc.. (the wealth effect)

whether or not you agree with this approach, the fed and congress care alot about the stock market for good reason.

i just wish it wasn’t all they cared about

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