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Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

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Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#51

Post by himeexcelanta »

sterileopinions wrote: post #44
gitrog wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, I posted this specifically because I feel that it provides a clearer picture of what censorship in China really is like, as opposed to the cartoonishly evil portrayal that most of Western media paints it in. Although I don't condone censorship overall, I do find it interesting and identify that governments will always find it necessary to impose some form of societal control. From this study, it seems…

>it seems to me that the Chinese government chooses to prevent events that may cause conflict and violence. That is almost noble, were it not for the fact that it also helps the government maintain a firm grip of control in all situations. Every single state acts this way. Every single effective state system at least. It's called "Monopoly on Violence." It is one of the defining characteristics of "modern" state orga…

A valid source doesn’t mean you automatically have a valid argument.

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#52

Post by sterileopinions »

himeexcelanta wrote: post #51
sterileopinions wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it seems to me that the Chinese government chooses to prevent events that may cause conflict and violence. That is almost noble, were it not for the fact that it also helps the government maintain a firm grip of control in all situations. Every single state acts this way. Every single effective state system at least. It's called "Monopoly on Violence." It is one of the defining characteristics of "modern" state orga…

A valid source doesn’t mean you automatically have a valid argument.

Neat?

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#53

Post by sterileopinions »

gitrog wrote: post #46
sterileopinions wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it seems to me that the Chinese government chooses to prevent events that may cause conflict and violence. That is almost noble, were it not for the fact that it also helps the government maintain a firm grip of control in all situations. Every single state acts this way. Every single effective state system at least. It's called "Monopoly on Violence." It is one of the defining characteristics of "modern" state orga…

That may be the official policy, but I think you only have to glance at the US to see that it doesn't always act on this. Of course, at some scale, government would be forced to act, but there is a lot of space in between where allowing violence to play out could even be beneficial to a ruling party.

>but there is a lot of space in between where allowing violence to play out could even be beneficial to a ruling party.

That's why I used the word "sanctioned", publicly or privately.

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#54

Post by Smithalicious »

kipqi wrote: post #30
roenxi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one that stands out to me is a girl I know from Shenzhen. Very intelligent, very articulate and someone I've pigeonholed as rising-star-in-leadership-somewhere material. She's basically maintaining what seems to me to be a fairly passionate cross between an attack on the protestors and a defense of Chinese national pride. The two main prongs are that the protestors are disruptive/the protests cause injury (citing…

Seems incredible to me that people keep thinking that intelligent people have to share the western liberal view of the world that we all have been indoctrinated under.

I think people are downvoting this over the word "indoctrinated" but I think it's a pretty accurate take. The whole democracy/freedom of speech/criticism of the government thing is an explicitly western position (though by now adopted at least in name by large parts of the world).

People in the west like to think that our cultural ideas are objectively superior and that anyone intelligent/reasonable/well-read enough would support them, and that's why you often see people act surprised when intellectuals in countries like China hold mainstream Chinese views.

In reality the main reason why we have the cultural ideas that we do is historical, and we all have them because we've been raised to believe these things since childhood. I think that's what the parent meant to say by "indoctrinated".

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#55

Post by sterileopinions »

himeexcelanta wrote: post #50
yogthos wrote: post #5

Exactly same thing can be said about US [1]. It really fascinates me how much focus there is on China when exact same things like suppression of political opinion and mass surveilance are happening in the West. I think it would be far more productive to focus on fixing shit here than to obsess about China as if everything was fine in the West. Meanwhile the West is still fueling the genocide in Yemen by the Saudis ma…

Sorry, but the US is a constitutional democratic republic with generally functioning rule of law, while the other is an a mercantilist-authoritarian-dictatorship with absolutely ZERO legal accountability to its citizens. By conflating patterns of US government’s very real human rights abuses (domestic and abroad) with with the CCP’s abuses, you demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of how each political sys…

>How about trying to do dispute the original premise instead of distracting?

Why must we take a contrary position to what was stated? You do understand that it's a perfectly valid and normal thing to agree with what was stated but pivot the conversation towards something that is more relevant and actionable?

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#56

Post by odiroot »

anovikov wrote: post #13
odiroot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More or less that. My Chinese friends discuss the politics openly, sometimes even on WeChat. As long as you don't do it over group chats or in public no one would bother you. There was just this funny thing that the famous llama pic was automatically filtered even in 1-1 chats.

Why people keep using the system that censors stuff? Why not just completely switch to something else? Or it will become impossible to analyze then cos they won't look "Chinese" then, so maybe they actually in fact do it, just keep posting on WeChat something meaningless to please the Party?

Their families usually use WeChat because it's the only messenger that works inside China.

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#57

Post by anovikov »

namelosw wrote: post #18
anovikov wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why people keep using the system that censors stuff? Why not just completely switch to something else? Or it will become impossible to analyze then cos they won't look "Chinese" then, so maybe they actually in fact do it, just keep posting on WeChat something meaningless to please the Party?

Except they can't, things like Instagram and WhatsApp are blocked and taken down from the AppStore. If there's new they would also be taken down. Any forums or messing app alike must do ISP registration from the government, the cloud provider has to make sure they can take down any website or web service on demand. Those websites without ISP registration has quite a change being blocked, and cannot use a lot of 3rd p…

But i mean, do anyone seriously try to use non-VPNned Internet in China? Without obfuscation? Of course only way to meaningfully use anything would be through an obfuscator. I asked people there (Europeans though, not Chinese) and they all say ToR with obfs4 works just fine.
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