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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

#181

Post by voltagex_ »

donatj wrote: post #76
darpa_escapee wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH, Alibaba, wechat etc

Have you actually used any of these? Alibaba is worse than Craigslist. Leaders they are not,

Alibaba or Aliexpress? I've got tens of packages off Aliexpress and have had no problems other than slow delivery (although it seems to be improving).

Yes, you have to know what you're looking for and you'll occasionally run across very low quality products (motorcycle gloves), but you'll find the same on eBay - where do you think most of those sellers are buying from?

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

#182

Post by bsder »

wyager wrote: post #63
darpa_escapee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've yet to see any proposals from the latter camp whereas I've seen dozens of pieces of legislation successfully passed and attempt to pass from the former.

Are you aware of how the only people in the US to ever be successfully censored from the public internet for political (as opposed to legal) reasons are far-right websites? This literally happened in the last week; domain registrars (the only gateway the public has to critical public DNS infrastructure) decided to voluntarily censor various far-right websites citing "hate speech" as their justification. There is, evi…

> Are you aware of how the only people in the US to ever be successfully censored from the public internet for political (as opposed to legal) reasons are far-right websites?

It wasn't the GOVERNMENT that did this. That's the only thing that freedom of speech laws give you freedom from.

And, those sites weren't suppressed because they impacted politics; they were suppressed because they impacted profitability.

It's almost like the right needs some sort of "neutrality" laws that guarantee that internet websites and internet traffic they need can't be restricted.

I'm pretty far left in my politics, and I find the idea that these websites got kicked off quite worrying. However, I also find the centralization of internet services quite worrying.

I'm still old school enough that I run my own servers for exactly this reason.

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

#183

Post by scaramanga »

dEnigma wrote: post #41
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only the Chinese government can get away with something unbelievable like these regulations Many countries do. To watch certain youtube videos in south korea you need to provide your social security number or something like that.

Interesting. Is that supposed to restrict access to adult content? Do porn sites also ask for the social security number?

Internet porn is censored wholesale in korea.

Edit: it actually redirects to a police warning, so presumably it's illegal to even access it.

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

#184

Post by scaramanga »

Larrikin wrote: post #116
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only the Chinese government can get away with something unbelievable like these regulations Many countries do. To watch certain youtube videos in south korea you need to provide your social security number or something like that.

Which YouTube videos?

Anything with the most vaguely adult content at all. Doesn't even need to be nudity.

See if you can figure out why Q_qoHCd3iuQ is age-restricted.

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

#185

Post by scaramanga »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #28
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 Many countries do. To watch certain youtube videos in south korea you need to provide your social security number or something like that.

> Many countries do. To watch certain youtube videos in south korea you need to provide your social security number or something like that.

South korea also strictly censors any publicly visible posting relating to elections and requires something like social-security number, or a faxed and verified passport for foreigners[0]. I guess that's meant to stop subversive groups from swaying elections.

Oh snap. Because in the mean time, government security agents were using the internet to propagandise for their preferred electoral candidate and manipulate the outcome of elections. Which only switched to direct vote pretty recently, and even then, merely elect a president with near dictatorial powers over all major government appointments.

Anyway, they're an ally, so there's no need for outpourings of scorn like there is in the case of china or russia.

[0]. wiki Internet_censorship_in_South_Korea [1]. guardian "South Korea spy agency admits trying to rig 2012 presidential election"

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

#186

Post by tim333 »

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…

>The Eastern desire to require "harmonious thoughts" is so at odds with the skepticism required to birth true innovations.

China: Paper Making, Movable Type Printing, Gunpowder, Compass, Alcohol, Mechanical Clocks, Toothbrush, Paper Money, rockets

Japan: The calculator, Walkman, blue LEDs, dvds, video cameras etc

they seem to come up with some stuff in spite of "harmonious thoughts." I think "commie dictatorship" may be more of an issue.

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

#187

Post by madshiva »

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, totally won't agree. We are maybe not so big than others, specially the little country that are not part of the Europe, but we surpass all the others country.

U.S. can be better with time, but they will be weaker and weaker if they don't stop losing money. Don't forget that you owes me 19 188 102 400 000 $ even in 4000 years we still talk about the debt.

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

#188

Post by iofiiiiiiiii »

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…

Facebook already requires many users to submit government ID scans, so... yeah, not so different after all.

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

#189

Post by tnone »

eighthnate wrote: post #150
alistproducer2 wrote: post #97

At least here in the states, social media + anonymity hasn't exactly been a boon for human progress. I will never support the laws being proposed in places like the u.k and China, but I like the fact that we are forced to grapple with these ethical issues when laws like this are proposed. Humanity is mainlining an experimental drug in social media. What makes it insideous is that most don't realize it. Governments ar…

> At least here in the states, social media + anonymity hasn't exactly been a boon for human progress. I'm geniunely astounded at the small but vocal pro-censorship group on hackernews of all places. Where did this come from? Just 5 or 10 or 15 years ago, the idea of any tech minded person being anti-anonymity would be incredibly shocking. Just in the past 2 or 3 years, there has been quite a small vocal group advoca…

The new generation is more censorious and intellectually sheltered than before. Blame schools and colleges who decided to focus on providing a safe space, and the tech companies those students moved into.

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

#190

Post by legulere »

bryananderson wrote: post #137
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.

A regime change is not really in the interest of anyone. There are no democratic elites to replace them. Just look what happened of the Arab Spring.

The goal needs to be a slow but steady democratisation process.

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