Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–648 of 648 posts

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#641

Post by maggiemamap »

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…

Completely second this. And on a side note, WeChat is a lot more innovative than WhatsApp!

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#642

Post by victornomad »

islanderfun wrote: post #150
victornomad wrote: post #29

Last year I went to China, wanted to show a web project I had in internet and it didnt work at all. My hosting was working perfectly and not blocked at all since I could SSH there. Then I realized that I had some jquery loading from a Google CDN and of course the cdn was banned there. And of course CSS fonts from google and youtube videos didnt work either... I learned 2 lessons. 1) dont rely on CDNs if you want to h…

Seems like the "lessons" you learned was to blame others for what the Chinese government did. - Google being blocked in China is out of their control regardless of their "tentacles". It's well know, try another CDN. - As already mentioned, don't use a CDN for the purpose CDNs exist. Thats really baffling to me. Sorry, this post wasn't so productive but I'm really confused by OP.

I reread my comment and I dont see any place where I blame others... Im just told my story, not blaming any body and mentioned how big is google, thats all anyway...

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#643

Post by victornomad »

detailyang wrote: post #418
victornomad wrote: post #29

Last year I went to China, wanted to show a web project I had in internet and it didnt work at all. My hosting was working perfectly and not blocked at all since I could SSH there. Then I realized that I had some jquery loading from a Google CDN and of course the cdn was banned there. And of course CSS fonts from google and youtube videos didnt work either... I learned 2 lessons. 1) dont rely on CDNs if you want to h…

If you want to access from china, it cannot get more speed without CDN. So give up china:)

well, it was my personal website and I wanted to show my own projects from there... I just forgot I was using CDNs from google since I wrote the site 6 years ago...

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#644

Post by imron »

dreamfactored wrote: post #616
imron wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Foreigners can't set up businesses of any kind Foreigners can set up businesses - see for example, the WFOE [0]. There are restrictions however for certain fields and business activities (infrastructure being one), so while foreigners can't just set up any company, they certainly can set up some companies if they like. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wholly_Foreign-Owned_Enterpris...

Thanks that's very helpful actually as I may well be doing this in future. My experience was from being told by Chinese that it was JV all the way and with O'Reilly having to use 3rd parties but thinking about it publishing would obviously be sensitive...

Yes, publishing is strictly regulated, and I'd imagine you'd need a JV for any sort of traditional publishing.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#645

Post by styfle »

I had a long layover in Shanghai recently and was a bit surprised that so many of the web sites I use regularly were blocked.

It seems all google products were blocked including gmail and google voice which are my primary means of communication.

Are there many Android users in China?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#646

Post by seppin »

FabHK wrote: post #188
alexasmyths wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth" Partly. The exception is that the Chinese are pretty good at this stuff, and that 'blocking foreign companies' simply let's local companies dominate. 'SnapChat' and 'What's App' are no innovation . For the most part. They are mostly just 'chat apps'. That's it. Ok, Snapchat does a 'really good job' at the 'visual storytelling part'. But China does not…

> 'blocking foreign companies' simply let's local companies dominate. Yes - in particular, consider that China has more people than North America and Europe together, so a Chinese "domestic" firm has quite a market.

> Yes - in particular, consider that China has more people than North America and Europe together, so a Chinese "domestic" firm has quite a market.

India has +1 billion too but no one to sell to

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#647

Post by seppin »

fspeech wrote: post #239
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…

Just for context, Chinese made 122 millon overseas trips last year https://www.travelchinaguide.com/tourism/2016statistics/outb... The censorship of social media is mainly to prevent collective action: "The study showed that, contrary to western conventional wisdom, Chinese social media is as raucous and chaotic as it is everywhere else, so the Daily Mail’s idea of a country full of timid, faceless people with only b…

doesn't sound like a ticketing time bomb at all..

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#648

Post by seppin »

Iv wrote: post #438
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…

The CCP congress is next month. They have always cracked down on censorship before it. Their 5-years plan for 2016-2020 is about transitioning from the basic industry to more advanced industry and services. They want more research, they want more IT. Chinese IT workers are very critical of the Great Firewall and depend on VPNs to do a lot of things. I think many are realizing that the Firewall is a handicap, but it i…

> Seeing China as acceptable is not more far-fetched.

Then Europeans are just as native as their reputation. Every country acts in their own self interest. For some, democracy and free markets are in their interest. For some, no.

Post reply on HN