China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
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Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#2What a shitty country to live in...
Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#3What a shitty country to live in...
If you were living in China, hearing the Chinese media's propaganda about the west instead of the western media's propaganda about China, you'd probably be saying the same thing about the west instead of about China.
Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#4What a shitty country to live in...
So is the US at times - and Norway (the places I've lived), and every other place I've visited. The same places are generally very nice in other ways. It just depends on what you are focusing on, who you are, and that sort of thing.
This particular facet is a shitty one, though.
Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#5There are a dozen popular live streaming apps in China where one can simply just stream what you're doing to everyone on the site and people can just watch them for hours. You can think of it like Instagram stories or Snapchat per se. Or even Facebook live.
This isn't some western media propaganda. I tried one of them very recently (I don't want to give them any undeserved marketing), they allowed me to sign up and the moment I clicked on my camera button it took me to a page asking me to "verify" my profile as apparently it was Chinese government's new regulation. Guess what? They asked me for my passport before I could upload a damn thing on their app.
Imagine, Facebook asking you to upload your passport before you do a live stream. Only the Chinese government can get away with something unbelievable like these regulations, while still gaining loyalty from their citizens to the point where these supporters will even defend the govt. everywhere online trying to explain how normal it is to submit your passport and your real identity to some random app company because you know, you just wanted to try it out and it's totally normal.
Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#6What a shitty country to live in...
If you were living in China, hearing the Chinese media's propaganda about the west instead of the western media's propaganda about China, you'd probably be saying the same thing about the west instead of about China.
I lived in China for a few years. Chinese media spends it's propaganda time on talking up life in China and how things are all getting better.
Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#7There are a dozen popular live streaming apps in China where one can simply just stream what you're doing to everyone on the site and people can just watch them for hours. You can think of it like Instagram stories or Snapchat per se. Or even Facebook live. This isn't some western media propaganda. I tried one of them very recently (I don't want to give them any undeserved marketing), they allowed me to sign up and t…
> Imagine, Facebook asking you to upload your passport before you do a live stream.
It wouldn't surprise me if a Western government (probably the UK's) considers introducing legislation to require exactly this in the not-too-distant future, most likely under the guise of preventing the spread of extremist propaganda.
If they do, companies like Facebook and YouTube will face a choice between acceding to the new regulation or incurring punitive fines. Guess which option most of them will choose?
The only way we can prevent George Orwell's vision from becoming a reality is if we build a more decentralised web. However, that also threatens the walled gardens' revenue streams.
Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#8There are a dozen popular live streaming apps in China where one can simply just stream what you're doing to everyone on the site and people can just watch them for hours. You can think of it like Instagram stories or Snapchat per se. Or even Facebook live. This isn't some western media propaganda. I tried one of them very recently (I don't want to give them any undeserved marketing), they allowed me to sign up and t…
To create a facebook account, you need either mobile phone number or email.
To have an email, you still need a mobile phone number to register for gmail (the most popular choice).
To have a mobile phone number, you need your passport or ID.
Yes, in some cases you can get phone numbers without passport, but then again you can also get IDs and fake passports easily in China if you want.
Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#9This is already the case for any substantial public posting. In order to get a crappy virtual web host that's not even on your own domain name one needs to supply a national ID number. For a virtual machine a corporation with an ICP license is required. This number must be displayed on every web site. It's evil. Their Twitter copy already requires ID. Anyone with a substantial following is known to authorities. I wonder if this new push to cripple the internet will kick off unidentified WeChat users.
Leaving aside political effects, this regime makes it very difficult to innovate. A Chinese developer just starting out can't just just rent a VM to show off his work. I helped someone get a webapp running on one of the big Chinese cloud service and it's really, really awful. Exactly what you would expect from an industry completely protected from competition by government.
Re: China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for Online Commenting
#10There are a dozen popular live streaming apps in China where one can simply just stream what you're doing to everyone on the site and people can just watch them for hours. You can think of it like Instagram stories or Snapchat per se. Or even Facebook live. This isn't some western media propaganda. I tried one of them very recently (I don't want to give them any undeserved marketing), they allowed me to sign up and t…
The Facebook thing is already happening to some extend, some of my friends had their account blocked because they didn't use their real name and the only way to unblock this account is to upload a scan of an ID or a passport.