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China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#91

Post by pionar »

harlanlewis wrote: post #90
jseliger wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Note that Russians, in surveys, explicitly prefer social stability to free speech and a free media. I wonder how much this is informed by Russians being conditioned by their media to "prefer social stability to free speech and a free media."

American individualism is hardly a natural born trait, we are all influenced by our environment. What people value and how they act in the interest of those values is what culture is all about.

While that may be true, it is also true that the environment is shaped by the people that inhabit it. Most of the people in the US come from immigrants, people who weren't afraid to set out on their own to a new place. Those kinds of people generally value individual freedoms over the stability of society.

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#93

Post by vorg »

woodhull wrote: post #40
wilfra wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear god, get a VPN. I used strongvpn.com when I lived in China, worked great. There are many others.

Agreed. I think the set of people who read HN from China and do not have a VPN account would probably consist of just this one person.

Your estimate is off by at least 100% as I don't bother with a VPN. The Firewall cracks down on them every now and then so money wasted.

The real problem with reading NYT articles isn't the Chinese Firewall anyway, it's NYT itself. About a year ago they put up their own NYT Firewall so only 20 articles a month will make it to my computer. Now it's only 10 a month. Because it's late in the calendar month (i.e. 27th), NYT wouldn't serve the page anyway.

Perhaps people criticizing the Chinese Firewall should think hard about why the NYT has a Firewall. Is the basic concept really all that different? After all, money and markets are just another form of political control, aren't they?

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#94

Post by jamesaguilar »

scarmig wrote: post #78
danielweber wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberty is a private university, and its students choose to attend knowing full-well its policies. (And it blocks a lot more than WaPo.) FIRE and the Virginia ACLU both agree with Liberty's right to do so: http://thefire.org/article/10717.html You are, of course, free to criticize LU for its policies.

Hmmm. I'm curious: if it turned out that private ISPs in China were blocking the NYTimes of their own volition, would that make it okay?

There are degrees of OK. It would be much more OK than if the government is doing it. Why? Chances are if private parties are doing it, there is some third-party that isn't, if you're willing to pay.

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#95

Post by smokeyj »

nicholas_tuzzio wrote: post #71
ihsw wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already do it with torrent websites and nobody cares, how much of a stretch is other politically inconvenient sites being unilaterally blocked?

Said torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US and many other nations and shouldn't be compared to the NYT.

> torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US

Right. We have free speech as long as it's legal. Just like the Chinese.

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#96

Post by monochromatic »

wilfra wrote: post #37

The truly sad part of this is most Chinese people wouldn't really mind the site being blocked because of this, nor even be all that surprised to learn what the article said. They don't get offended and angered by their government hiding things from them or abusing their power in the same way people in Western countries do, nor do they have a strong desire to learn the truth. They just accept this as the way things ar…

It just blows my mind. I once discussed this issue with a tour guide in China, and his response was basically that censorship was ok, because people would just get all upset about things otherwise.

How do you even respond to that?

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#97

Post by xibernetik »

pionar wrote: post #91
harlanlewis wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American individualism is hardly a natural born trait, we are all influenced by our environment. What people value and how they act in the interest of those values is what culture is all about.

While that may be true, it is also true that the environment is shaped by the people that inhabit it. Most of the people in the US come from immigrants, people who weren't afraid to set out on their own to a new place. Those kinds of people generally value individual freedoms over the stability of society.

I'm curious what the actual stats are with regards to that theory. More than a few historic immigration waves were prompted because things were so bad "back home" - for a variety of reasons including social instability - that the fear of setting out to a new place was far less than the fear of remaining. I'm not sure if that was so much an issue of individual freedom.

Examples off the top of my head would be the rise of the communist party in China and the Irish potato famine.

However, the first wave of Europeans colonists to come the US definitely did value individual freedoms over stability. I don't know how strong their influence is on the population itself, but their views are definitely reflected in the laws and historical document (e.g. The Constitution).

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#98

Post by barry-cotter »

viviantan wrote: post #42
matthewrudy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people here in Hong Kong don't regard themselves to be part of China. We have our own legal, visa, financial, and political system. Although Beijing occasionally steers the political system, censorship of any kind usually ends up in protest. I can't imagine what would happen if they tried to do censor the internet here.

Hong Kong's awesome. Love the food, love the people, love the incredible cityscape, love everything :) I heard that Beijing's trying to phase out the Cantonese language in Hong Kong. Has it been enforced?

I really, really doubt that. They pulled back on “patriotic education” which is honestly something a relatively large minority cared strongly about. If they tried to phase out Cantonese everyone who didn't move from the mainland would go ape. Also, Mandarin isn't even an official language, Cantonese and English are it.

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#99

Post by ucee054 »

wilfra wrote: post #37

The truly sad part of this is most Chinese people wouldn't really mind the site being blocked because of this, nor even be all that surprised to learn what the article said. They don't get offended and angered by their government hiding things from them or abusing their power in the same way people in Western countries do, nor do they have a strong desire to learn the truth. They just accept this as the way things ar…

How much do you think Americans mind the Julian Assange affair?

I get the impression the difference between the societies is only of degree, not quality.

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#100

Post by JakeSc »

nicholas_tuzzio wrote: post #71
ihsw wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already do it with torrent websites and nobody cares, how much of a stretch is other politically inconvenient sites being unilaterally blocked?

Said torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US and many other nations and shouldn't be compared to the NYT.

Why not? NYT has now been deemed "illegal" in the eyes of Chinese rulers, just as these torrent sites have been deemed "illegal" in the eyes of US rulers.

Both cases are forms of speech. Neither is free.

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