71–80 of 147 posts
I'm an American, own and operate two Chinese companies (an operations/engineering consulting company and a factory). I was here when Google left. From the end user's viewpoint, internet censorship has only become more strict. While VPN access has never been totally unavailable, it can be painful to use. I've changed my browsing habits to settle for using Bing more than I otherwise would have. At the same time, I'm th…
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Maps does not work in China. Source: in China
Maps work better in China than Japan. Source, living in Shanghai and Beijing with occasional Japan trips got a year.
You can see your own location in the Maps app, but that’s based on the phone’s GPS, not a google service.
Not sure what the comparison to Japan is, but maps works fine in Tokyo. I use it extensively every time I go there.
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Maps work better in China than Japan. Source, living in Shanghai and Beijing with occasional Japan trips got a year.
Google maps is not accessible without a VPN in China. Not sure what the disagreeement is about. I’m looking at it being blocked on my computer right now. You can see your own location in the Maps app, but that’s based on the phone’s GPS, not a google service. Not sure what the comparison to Japan is, but maps works fine in Tokyo. I use it extensively every time I go there.
Is it just me, or on all of the recent China articles is there been a noticeable increase in newly-created accounts with "quality of local newspaper comment sections" comments? I'm not super pro China, but there is a lot of FUD and poor commenting going on.
r u suggesting that we are the target of a Russian influence campaign?
For instance, your account is 28 days old. Not to exclude you from the conversation, but poor comments from new accounts does look dubious.
Ardy42 is new as of 47 days
Why are we going as far as China? Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, among others need to come clean about their censorship of conservative voices right here in their back yard. All the folks who rallied for net neutrality are now cheering for the coordinated Big Tech assault on free speech. This needs to be talked about. Agree or disagree with the voices they are silencing (ie. Alex Jones), what is happening these da…
It's no "assault on free speech". The right of free speech doesn't mean that private corporations have to be a platform for it. The right embraced private corporations having "religious and moral rights" with the cake shop and Hobby Lobby cases. This is the other side of the coin.
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He represents free speech. He is just one of several conservative leaning voices silenced by Big Tech in recent months. One of the most troubling aspects of the Alex Jones ban is the obvious coordination among Apple, Facebook, YouTube and others to completely take him off their platforms at the exact same time. How this doesn't bother HN is crazy. It's truly crazy how YouTube takes down Alex Jones easily but ElsaGate…
If FANG were government institutions then yes I think a lot of the people here would be alarmed. But they aren't -- they are private companies, who can suppress or promote whatever they want. It doesn't matter whether or not you or I or anyone else likes it, that's just how it is. The courts have affirmed corporate personhood, and their resulting freedom of speech, and in this case they are free to suppress things th…
One issue we have is that companies today, in the era of the internet, have grown well beyond any conceivable notion of what it meant to be a company in the past. Facebook now has more than 30% of the world's population in monthly users. They have more active users than any country has citizens. And they exercise more control over them (at least within the confines of the digital world) than nations do as these users' rights and privileges are dictated under a set of unidirectionally imposed terms as opposed to any sort of a public constitution or system of rights. In a way it almost feels like the digital era is perhaps echoing back our evolution from master-slave societies which gradually evolved to feudal societies and eventually onto democratic ones.
Should companies begin to be treated more as we might think of governments once their reach begins to expand beyond that even of governments? I'm not sure, but I do think that we also can't simply appeal to former views. For instance the founding fathers certainly gave no consideration to how companies, with more users than the world population in the 18th century, ought be regarded.
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Google maps is not accessible without a VPN in China. Not sure what the disagreeement is about. I’m looking at it being blocked on my computer right now. You can see your own location in the Maps app, but that’s based on the phone’s GPS, not a google service. Not sure what the comparison to Japan is, but maps works fine in Tokyo. I use it extensively every time I go there.
I forgot to clarify, I'm using Google Fi in Beijing right now. My point was that, even though maps may be blocked, it really works flawlessly. It's better than Baidu maps, though Baidu has made great strides in quality lately.
* edit: grammar.
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If FANG were government institutions then yes I think a lot of the people here would be alarmed. But they aren't -- they are private companies, who can suppress or promote whatever they want. It doesn't matter whether or not you or I or anyone else likes it, that's just how it is. The courts have affirmed corporate personhood, and their resulting freedom of speech, and in this case they are free to suppress things th…
While you may genuinely believe what you're saying, I think many people saying as much are doing so out of cognitive dissonance. For instance, imagine if these tech companies decided to start removing all negative discussion of Trump. There would be quite the outrage, and very understandably so. I say understandably so not because of the topic in question, but because these companies have become monoliths of speech i…
Saying "companies are too big, we have to do something about them" is making a point grounded in concept, not concrete law or action. I too am worried about our current crop of megacorp but if history is indicator the US government will outlive them (as stable governments usually do).
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I forgot to clarify, I'm using Google Fi in Beijing right now. My point was that, even though maps may be blocked, it really works flawlessly. It's better than Baidu maps, though Baidu has made great strides in quality lately.
But how did you get the Google Fiber in Beijing? * edit: grammar.
Is it just me, or on all of the recent China articles is there been a noticeable increase in newly-created accounts with "quality of local newspaper comment sections" comments? I'm not super pro China, but there is a lot of FUD and poor commenting going on.