China Says US Uses Facebook To Spread Political Unrest 274
crimeandpunishment writes "A Chinese government-backed think tank says the US and other western governments use Facebook and other social networking sites to spread political unrest. Their report says, 'We must pay attention to the potential risks and threats to state security as the popularity of social-networking sites continues to grow,' and calls for increased scrutiny of the sites."
True but not necessarily a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
The obvious solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously though, they do have something of a point, the US WOULD push social networking in China if they thought it would help bring freedom of speech to China. It's not the US government pushing social unrest, it's the people themselves communicating and finding out the problems with the government. I don't think the US government pushing anything would help anything though, and might even hurt in this case. Better to let the Chinese people find their own way, as long as they don't go insane.
Radio (Score:4, Insightful)
What if the U.S. were to set up a radio station [wikipedia.org] across the border from a nation, and began broadcasting propaganda into said nation?
The Slashdot community frequently criticizes the media for making arbitrary distinctions between the Internet and non-Internet realms -- time for some self-criticism.
Sounds like paranoia and projection to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that the Chinese government pays people to do the very same thing on every Western media/blog site they come across. I seriously doubt the American government does the same. There is no need. Apparently the Chinese government can't tell the difference between real enthusiasm (even if implicit) for one's country and the enforced/coerced kind to which they are accustomed.
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:5, Insightful)
In Asia "western governments" are used to justify bad legislation and censorship in the same way that terrorists and pedoophiles are used to justify the same in the west. There are so many handles you can use to push the sheeple where you want them to be.
Governments oppose Free Speech (Score:5, Insightful)
No government really welcomes free speech. Some may claim that they do, but actions speak louder than words. The only interest that a government has in free communication is when they have a firm grip over it's contents. It just happens that the US and other western governments have measures already in place to control or obfuscate the information on the web and in the media.
They create tools such as the Fairness Doctrine [wikipedia.org], and generally flood the people with "different viewpoints" to muddy the waters. China's issue is that it has spent so much time trying to shut down the internet that it really hasn't been able to get the control that it would like. That's where this campaign comes in. It's the Chinese who are now muddying the waters. They come up with some reports that claim that the west is actively trying to hurt them. Then, when people see something online, the Chinese government can say "It's all lies made up by west. Trust us instead."
In time, and with the rise of contentless Flash pages and product ads, the web will probably stop being useful for information to any but the hardcore nerd with time and tools to push past the fluff. Where are all the RDF search engines that we were promised? With HTML5 I hear people talking a lot about video playback functionality, but I haven't heard any buzz about the semantic web. A web that gives you only pretty pictures won't help the world, and likewise won't hurt a government.
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:2, Insightful)
It wouldn't take all that many people to astroturf the most popular sites; maybe a few hundred, which wouldn't be that expensive at China's current wages.
The irony here is that Chinese wages are increasing, due to the chinese one child policy and their aging population; eventually it'll become far more expensive to play this sort of censorship game.
Re:The obvious solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who don't believe this just need to look at examples as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the various democratically elected governments in South America (and around the world) overthrown by the US in the past century to see how US foreign policy works.
Just to point out something blindingly obvious......that should be blindingly obvious to you......US foreign policy has changed a lot in the last century. It has changed a lot in the last 25 years, and it's making dramatic changes right now as we try to find our place in the post cold-war world (note the switch Bush made between isolationism to invading countries). The entire world has changed! A hundred years ago, European countries couldn't wait to jump at each other's throats.
You are incredibly naive to lump an entire century together and say, "That is US policy."
Incidentally, if the 'ruling class' is controlling foreign policy, it is the fault of the citizens for allowing them to do that.
Re:Really ? How ? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are plenty of FB groups/fan-pages like "free tibet", pro falun-gong, etc (and stuff like "free the monks in burma" which is not directly related to China, but which nonetheless likely makes the chinese government nervous), and those may be what they're whining about.
It's very unclear whether such groups make any actual difference in practice, even if they have many members, but they do help to keep such issues an active subject of popular discussion, and of course the chinese government royally freaks out at even a mention of many of these topics (I don't know why they do, exactly, other than an institutional proclivity to freak out at even the slightest loss of control over information).
Re:Oh really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I might have put it in different terms, but yeah, that's about the size of it.
As I grow into an "older perspective" on life, I begin to see that much trouble occurs when people try too hard to block "the human condition." We are all people and we think and feel as people do. It doesn't matter what spot of dirt you were born on or even what culture(s) you were born into so much. In varying degrees, we all pretty much want the same things and will act in many of the same ways to get them. (with a wide variety of personal limitations) And certainly one thing all people have in common is that we want to express ourselves and I'm not even sure that's exclusive to humans as I am sure pet lovers might agree.
The purpose of government is to serve society in a way that keeps it from destroying itself. I recognize what raw human desire, greed and ambition can drive people to do -- anything. That drive needs to be regulated for a healthy society to flourish. But without that raw human desire, there can be no healthy society and certainly no healthy individuals as our hopes and dreams are not so far removed from desire, greed and ambition. There are unquestionably good reasons why we have laws against murder and against theft. We need them to keep us from destroying one another. But going too far in the direction if controlling, limiting and containing the human spirit, which is what governments like China seek to do, and you will find people literally willing to die for the chance to express their thoughts and ideas.
In the U.S., our constitution (or what's left of it) was written specifically, to prevent government from serving itself instead of society. It has managed to slow the progress of greedy and ambitious people who seek to limit people in order to enrich themselves. The rights to free speech and to bear arms weren't written on a whim and were all about limiting what the government can do, because without limitations, government (which is a smaller group of people who regulate larger groups of people) will do what humans will do without regulation imposed upon them which includes killing and stealing and other things.
For China's government to assert that Facebook causes political unrest is nothing short of China's denial of what it means to be human. Every time I see censorship, I see one mind wishing to silence another mind. It just can't work that way... and it doesn't.
Re:Oh really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually who would want to be our president? you have to be a moron to even consider it. For any given situation you have one of three tools, diplomacy, lawyers, or soldiers. if you can't fix it with those three tools then your screwwed. Every one who goes to live in the white house comes out pale withdrawn, and much grayer than when they went in. The president of teh USA get's all the blame but rarely can do anything about it.
As an example BP's oil spill. BP is a company so diplomacy won't work. he can sue them or send in the army. The army doesn't have any experience in shutting down underwater oil wells so that won't work and suing them would take 5 years anyways. Therefore Obama can only let BP work add a little pressure but in reality is helpless. Yet he gets all the blame for failure.
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:3, Insightful)
The other difference is in the US, workers are sold the dream that anyone has an equal chance to make it big if they work hard enough at it, and workers are free to complain long and loud about the system , their bosses, how much the government sucks, etc.
In China, they had a revolution that was supposed to make everyone equal, but the workers are still getting screwed over and getting bugger all for their efforts, without any accompanying freedoms that US workers enjoy.
Of course in both systems, the workers are getting screwed, and will probably always get screwed, because those in charge of the means of production, (ie. factory owners, Intellectual property owners, land owners etc.) will always find a way to justify why their time and effort is worth so much more per hour than the ordinary employees.
For example, do you think that the average CEO of a company really does such a magnificent job compared to the average employee, that they should be paid 531 times the average hourly worker? http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/CEOsOverpaid.htm [about.com]
There is definitely a case for CEOs getting paid more than a regular worker, (say, 10x), as they do have a great deal more responsibility and a rarer set of skills compared to the average worker, but that level of difference is a sign of a broken and unfair system, just as it is in China.
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:3, Insightful)
"The only difference between Chinese and Americans is that Americans think they're free. Just because we have nice TVs doesn't mean we have it so much better than the average Chinese."
It has nothing to do with "nice TVs". We are allowed to speak out against the government without getting thrown in jail. There is more than one political party (every US citizen has a chance to vote) and we can run businesses without having to pay off the corrupt government. There is no such thing as a license to have a certain amount of kids in the US.
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:3, Insightful)
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! --Barry Goldwater
Of course, if you see the demands of justice and liberty as opposing forces, you might still claim that Goldwater is seeking the moderate position between absolute justice and absolute liberty. But that would involve a certain amount of debasement.
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:2, Insightful)
"The other difference is in the US, workers are sold the dream that anyone has an equal chance to make it big if they work hard enough at it, and workers are free to complain long and loud about the system , their bosses, how much the government sucks, etc."
You do have an equal chance. Hard work has to do with it, but it also takes a little bit of luck and a good idea (something that's actually worth money).
"In China, they had a revolution that was supposed to make everyone equal"
Does a society really want everyone to be equal? Everyone should have an equal chance, but human nature dictates that some people will put more effort into life than others
"For example, do you think that the average CEO of a company really does such a magnificent job compared to the average employee, that they should be paid 531 times the average hourly worker?"
Why does it matter? Private companies can pay their employees whatever they want to. If they want to pay the CEO $10 million dollars and the regular employees $10/hour, there should be no problems.
"There is definitely a case for CEOs getting paid more than a regular worker, (say, 10x), as they do have a great deal more responsibility and a rarer set of skills compared to the average worker, but that level of difference is a sign of a broken and unfair system, just as it is in China."
I love how you just throw a number out there and think that's it's "fair".
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:5, Insightful)
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
--Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right [marxists.org]
If someone is suffering from severe physical pain, the best medical solution is to diagnose and treat the underlying pain, and not simply to give them a narcotic. On the other hand, if you cannot treat the underlying condition, it would be inhumane to cut off opiates.
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:2, Insightful)
no, I do not think that society wants to make everyone equal - which is why the idealized version of communism will always fail - everyone is most certainly not equal, and people who put in the effort to better themselves and are more productive should be better rewarded for their efforts.
I think the real problem is rampant crony-ism in both China and in Western countries, where there is a huge disparity between the pay for top level jobs versus average jobs.
The 10x figure was not completely out of my ass, by the way. The average worker salary in the US is about $50,000, and in the 80's the salary used to be 42x the average working salary. President Obama has set the salary cap at 500,000 for any of the companies that the government bailed out (ie. 10x), and that seems like a reasonable starting point to me.
You can only live in one house, cruise around in one boat and drive one car at a time. At a certain point, bigger and bigger salaries for top CEO's stop increasing the real quality of life of an executive and instead just becomes a way of keeping track of how much better than the next CEO they are - ie. the marginal utility of every extra dollar a CEO earns approaches zero, but it is in our nature to always want more, so the salaries grow way beyond the point at which further increases are meaningless.
The same amount of money however, makes a much bigger difference to employees at the bottom end of the pay scale, and would overall improve the standard of the average employee much more, and generally make for happier employees.
I am not saying everyone should get paid identically - of course individual talents and skills have to be recognized and rewarded. I am just questioning the huge disparity between the top levels and the bottom levels, which are by and large maid at the expense of the guys on the bottom rung.
Re:The Americans are tampering with our internet! (Score:3, Insightful)
There are 170,000 prisoners in California.
it costs $47,102 per prisoner to keep them in jail. http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/laomenus/sections/crim_justice/6_cj_inmatecost.aspx?catid=3 [ca.gov]
Total cost: $8 billion
California Budget deficit: $19 Billion
so no, just halving the number of prisoners alone would not solve the budget crisis - but some percentage of them would be paying taxes, and generally participating in the economy of the state which would further increase revenues, instead of each of them being a $47,000 a year money pit.
Additionally, the guards etc. that are needed to guard them would be engaged in some other part of the economy which would also increase growth.
Having a guard watching over a prisoner is the economic equivalent of having the state employ people to dig holes and fill them in again - it keeps people busy but does not help with the growth of the economy. If the prisoners really need to be in jail then it's worth while, but if they are there because of laws that tend to be "jail happy" ( like trigger happy) then it is a waste of resources to keep them there and a waste of their potential contribution to society. Leep jail for the really bad crooks - not the idiots that decided to smoke the wrong substance - those guys need education/rehabilitation, not jail.