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China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

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Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#91

Post by vacri »

unabridged wrote: post #81
alphaalpha101 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA doesn't have freedom of speech in any meaningful sense. You only have to look at the way peaceful protestors are treated to see that. The Occupy Wall Street protesters were treated horrifically. As more and more formerly public places are privatised and the veneration of private property as an ideal above all others continues, the USA is simply running out of places where you're even allowed to protest. And t…

Blocking a road is not free speech. Preventing people from going into a building is not free speech. This is just private citizens attempting to restrict the right of movement of other private citizens. The right to publish any media, no matter how obscene or political, is free speech. And the US has the closest to free speech of any major country.

> The right to publish any media, no matter how obscene or political, is free speech. And the US has the closest to free speech of any major country.

When it comes to freedom of the press, Reporters Without Borders rates the US quite poorly - it's down at #43, with the UK at #40. When it comes to anglo cultures, the highest any of the 'five eyes' gets is New Zealand, at #13.

There is a difference between law and implementation.

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#92

Post by rdlecler1 »

Retric wrote: post #33
scottLobster wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert on China, but this fits the pattern of them making extreme laws (ie death penalty for corruption) and then selectively enforcing them. Laws are tools for the party to use when it feels it might benefit, not universal rules.

What's really interesting about this is how unstable it makes the country. Clamp down and eventually you end up in a USSR situation where the government suddenly disintegrates with little real warning because there is no feedback loop to maintain stability. Things seem ok because everyone ends up walking around pretending things are good even the people enforcing the rules. Untill you get a little spark and suddenly…

As long as the economy is good, the party will remain in power. If they lose control of that then you're right. The question then is, what's the probabability of a major prolonged financial crisis in China starting over the next two decades. 5% is not an unreasonable probability.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#93

Post by rdlecler1 »

jordanb wrote: post #52
Retric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really interesting about this is how unstable it makes the country. Clamp down and eventually you end up in a USSR situation where the government suddenly disintegrates with little real warning because there is no feedback loop to maintain stability. Things seem ok because everyone ends up walking around pretending things are good even the people enforcing the rules. Untill you get a little spark and suddenly…

Thing about it is, the USSR could have stayed in power if they had been willing to get bloody enough. If Stalin had been in power (or even Khrushchev) the USSR would not have collapsed. There may have been another holodomor. There may have been another terror. But the government would have survived. This is a lesson the CCP learned watching events unfold to the north, and they put it to work in 1989. The question is…

The idiom is: "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey."

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#94

Post by panic »

unabridged wrote: post #84
oculusthrift wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you ever stop to wonder why every communist state ends up the same? is it possible they misunderstand human motivations and psychology and will always devolve to authoritarianism?

Because so far every communist state has been created by violent revolutionaries side stepping the democratic process. The type of people who join a party that wants to shove the beliefs of 10% down the throats of the 90% are inherently authoritarian. Its no wonder they never become real democracies once they have total power.

I'm not sure this argument works -- many democratic states (including the US) were also created by violent revolutionaries.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#95

Post by throwawaycanada »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #68
scottLobster wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert on China, but this fits the pattern of them making extreme laws (ie death penalty for corruption) and then selectively enforcing them. Laws are tools for the party to use when it feels it might benefit, not universal rules.

For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law. - Óscar R. Benavides

So much said in so few words.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#96

Post by microcolonel »

golemotron wrote: post #48
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. I think we'd like to believe that, mostly because we don't want to face the possibility that China's system might work out fine.

I wish I knew more about Chinese history. They have about 4K years of institutional memory to draw on and they likely are more aware of their history than we are of ours in the West.

The CCP is largely defined by rejection, destruction, and denial of the majority of that institutional memory.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#97

Post by throwawaycanada »

Retric wrote: post #58
jordanb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing about it is, the USSR could have stayed in power if they had been willing to get bloody enough. If Stalin had been in power (or even Khrushchev) the USSR would not have collapsed. There may have been another holodomor. There may have been another terror. But the government would have survived. This is a lesson the CCP learned watching events unfold to the north, and they put it to work in 1989. The question is…

Dictators can't wave a wand and cause such things they need people and institutions to enforce their rule. More importantly they need accurate information information about what is and is not working. So, sure in 1960 in theory they could have changed things and kept the system running, but that's not nessisarily true of say 1985. And I my expectation is they did not really grasp how close to failure they where in 19…

It is very, very easy to get people to do terrible things. I'm sure you are familiar with the Milgram experiments.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#98

Post by mirimir »

etplayer wrote: post #47
oculusthrift wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you ever stop to wonder why every communist state ends up the same? is it possible they misunderstand human motivations and psychology and will always devolve to authoritarianism?

>did you ever stop to wonder why every communist state ends up the same? Communists have. Anarchists have. I know you're using the question rhetorically, it deserves an answer. Some say that it lies in praxis - the method in which lower-stage Communism is established; some say that it is because of Lenin's praxis, that is, Marxism-Leninism, not Marxism or Communism in general; some say that it is because the state mu…

I've come to believe that all political systems at greater than community scale end up as kleptocracies. Because power corrupts. And because people are readily manipulated. Especially when so much data is available, and propaganda can be individually targeted.

I used to think that things would improve after the singularity. But Hannu Rajaniemi's novels have disabused me of those fantasies. It could well get worse. The masses become slave minds. Subprograms, basically.

So it goes.

Re: China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages

#99

Post by ghthor »

unabridged wrote: post #84
oculusthrift wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you ever stop to wonder why every communist state ends up the same? is it possible they misunderstand human motivations and psychology and will always devolve to authoritarianism?

Because so far every communist state has been created by violent revolutionaries side stepping the democratic process. The type of people who join a party that wants to shove the beliefs of 10% down the throats of the 90% are inherently authoritarian. Its no wonder they never become real democracies once they have total power.

I believe is has to do with the competitive winner takes all economic system that these governments evolve within. It breeds distrust, which leads to authoritarianism.
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