China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works

[Independent voter]

I think if you restrict the internet, you reduce its power and it's ability to help your people. The internet is more than a source of goat porn, it's a tool that helps everyone in your society. It's disruptive by nature.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...4dc_story.html



“This path is the choice of history, and the choice of the people, and we walk the path ever more firmly and full of confidence,” China’s Internet czar, Lu Wei, boasted in January.

After two decades of Internet development under the Communist Party’s firm leadership, he said, his country had struck the correct balance between “freedom and order” and between “openness and autonomy.” It is traveling, he said, on a path of “cyber-governance with Chinese characteristics.”

What China calls the “Golden Shield” is a giant mechanism of censorship and surveillance that blocks tens of thousands of websites deemed inimical to the Communist Party’s narrative and control, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and even Instagram.

In April, the U.S. government officially classified it as a barrier to trade, noting that eight of the 25 most trafficked sites globally were now blocked here. The American Chamber of Commerce in China says that 4 out of 5 of its member companies report a negative impact on their business from Internet censorship.

Yet there is to be no turning back. Later this year, China is expected to approve a new law on cybersecurity that would codify, organize and strengthen its control of the Internet.

It has introduced new rules restricting foreign companies from publishing online content and proposed tighter rules requiring websites to register domain names with the government.

Apple was an early victim, announcing in April that its iTunes Movies and iBooks services were no longer available in China, six months after their launch here (though shortly after it announced a $1 billion investment in a Chinese car service).

As it pursues a broad crackdown on free speech and civil society, China has tightened the screws on virtual private network (VPN) providers that allow people to tunnel under the Firewall.

The changes are not, as some initially feared, a move to cut off access to the outside world and establish a Chinese intranet but are instead an attempt to extend legal control and supervision over what is posted online within the country, experts say.

Indeed, China’s Firewall is far more sophisticated and multi-tiered than a simple on-off switch: It is an attempt to bridge one of the country’s most fundamental contradictions — to have an economy intricately connected to the outside world but a political culture closed off from such “Western values” as free speech and democracy.

[Deleted]

They have internet in Africa? LUL

[Wells]

They have internet in Africa? LUL

What's the joke?

[Deleted]

What's the joke?

Most of the time you



Infracted. Starting fights on the forum is not okay.

[Deleted]

They have internet in Africa? LUL

They still make your kind of crap posters? LUL

[Wells]

Most of the time you

I mean racist and petulant is kind of overkill but you do you.

[Mysterymask]

They have internet in Africa? LUL

You do know Africa is a lot more than all the huts you see on TV right? I mean most of the footage you see is literally just people seeking out THOSE areas...I mean hell if the only thing people outside the US saw was the shitty parts of Detroit everywhere else in the world would think we are a super delapidated hovel of crap too

[Hooked]

Chinese people are used to following strict rules, seems to work for them, doesn't mean it would work for people who love freedom. They are probably just thankful they are allowed any internet at all.

[Deleted]

You do know Africa is a lot more than all the huts you see on TV right? I mean most of the footage you see is literally just people seeking out THOSE areas...I mean hell if the only thing people outside the US saw was the shitty parts of Detroit everywhere else in the world would think we are a super delapidated hovel of crap too

You aren't?

[Raldazzar]

I found the joke amusing enough, stop looking for reasons to whine all the time people.

[Mormolyce]

China would also have you believe an oppressive Communist regime works. Maybe it does, if you have a complicit population and enough power over the media to suppress any evidence of resistance or circumvention.

The internet is more than a source of goat porn

Blatant lies.

[Howard Moon]

Huh, is there really internet censorship in Mexico, like the map indicates?

[SodiumChloride]

China would also have you believe an oppressive Communist regime works. Maybe it does, if you have a complicit population and enough power over the media to suppress any evidence of resistance or circumvention.

Just like the U.S.S.R. worked ... until suddenly it didn't.

[primalmatter]

This thread not only burned wells but went to shit talking Africa so fast. I am proud of you off topic forum.

As for the topic at hand its kinda meh. It isn't like google doesn't drop some sites they find unfavorable from their search results.

[Strangebrew]

Most of the time you

This sounds about correct.

[Ravenblade]

They have internet in Africa? LUL

Yes. If look at the map you know which regions are probably most developed. It's in a sense like saying: There's rich countries in Europe? LUL

[Strangebrew]

So half the posts up to this point is people insulting each other? Maybe China is doing it right ^^

Happens when you get people bitching over jokes.

[Deleted]

China uses censorship and shilling in sina weibo baidu to maintain their current values

We use censorship and shilling in facebook twitter to do the same to maintain our current values

We are definitely more free than China, but our methods of control are more subtle also

[Independent voter]

China uses censorship and shilling in sina weibo baidu to maintain their current values

We use censorship and shilling in facebook twitter to do the same to maintain our current values

We are definitely more free than China, but our methods of control are more subtle also

Few Chinese know about Tiananmen Man

[Deleted]

Few Chinese know about Tiananmen Man

And few Americans know about the Gulf of Tonkin

Most chinese people have heard about Tiananmen, but really, they just don't care

Most people just want to get on with their lives and not get in trouble or break the groupthink - that applies equally to USA/Europe and China/Russia