China Starts Censoring Phone Calls Mid Sentence

bhagwad writes "Several reports have emerged that China is cutting off phone calls mid-sentence when contentious words like 'protest' are used. Seems like China's draconian censorship regime is going into overdrive with even more sophisticated censoring. Of course, this comes on the heels of Google accusing them of mucking around with Gmail as well."

Who cares?

[sgage]

90% of our stuff here in the US is from China. It's cheap. That's all that matters. Mass censorship, brutal putdowns of dissent, etc. - none of that matters. Real Konsumerism Politik, don't cha know.

There will be no riots, a la Tunisia. Well, maybe for about 5 minutes. Who cares? As long as we get our cheap stuff from China.

Re:Foolish?

[bieber]

From what I've read, the Chinese people generally support their country's censorship, and honestly believe in the importance of the state protecting them from "immoral" things and so on. You would be amazed what people will rationalize when they've grown up with it. For instance, I have a friend who I met in high school who lived in the UAE for most of her life, where the Internet is censored, the government enforces harsh religious law, and the law gives special preference to natives in many areas. She was pretty much like a normal teenager in every respect, mostly liberal, but her reaction to things like Internet censorship by the government was pretty much "meh." She was once casually explaining to me how native Emirati were, for instance, allowed to tint their car windows darker than immigrants, and sincerely didn't care at all about such rules, even though they worked against her (she's Egyptian).

When an injustice is introduced to you as child, it doesn't seem to you like an injustice, it just seems like business as usual. After all, it's not like there aren't significant injustices right here in the US that most of us just ignore while going about our lives...

Re:China is a Fascist Dictatorship

[mlts]

I wouldn't go that far against China, because for the most part living conditions are improving. People are moving from the rice paddies to their equivalent of Suburbia.

However, the ability to say what one wills is completely different. If I wanted to arrange a protest march where I live, other than some paperwork (so the police can clear traffic and announce to people to find another route), I can pretty much have any message (even unpopular) walked to the state capitol building. Someone does this in China, and they might stand a chance of ending up in a mental home, prison, or dead.

China isn't all bad:

They are getting a stable middle class while here in the US, there is a marked erosion of it.

They emphasize education, while here in the US, education is mocked, or even considered against religious beliefs.

Being a blackhat is considered an honorable profession there, as good as a crack team soldier. Here, someone with "offensive" hacking skills who makes themselves known ends up either in prison, or suffering GeoHot's fate.

China's government is building infrastructure, both Internet and physical. It is a good concept that seems to be lost here across the pond about investing on things past the next fiscal quarter.

My fear is that China has one thing the US doesn't right now; nationalism. Will China decide to go for some low-hanging fruit like Taiwan is anyone's guess.

The point of censorship

[DragonWriter]

From what I've read, the Chinese people generally support their country's censorship

Yes, effective censorship assures that what you read from the people subject to it is consistent with the viewpoint the censoring entity wishes to hace expressed, while contrary messages are suppressed.That's the whole point of censorship.

Re:That irony can be so ironic sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

Paywall, not firewall.

Re:Who cares?

[Chowderbags]

Nobody knows China's last 150 years of history, which was basically one disaster after another. The nation was divided and without a common language, and Mao united the people under one flag, stopped the wars of province against province, and gave the people the gift of a common language that could unite their diverse cultures.

And then promptly enacted economic reforms that caused tens of millions of deaths! [wikipedia.org] Besides, it's not like some cultures want to not be part of China (*cough* Tibet. *cough* Uyghurs.).

Re:Why would tha happen? Entirely different situat

[ElectricTurtle]

Yes, and it only took 40 years of martial law and 140,000 political prisoners in Taiwan alone. Don't get me wrong, the ROC has achieved a lot since the Chinese Civil War, but development in the first few decades was achieved at a terrible cost. When the DPP and the Pan-Greens finally achieved real democracy, they pissed it away with petty corruption and cronyism right out of the gate with Chen Shui Bian's administration. This was doubly disappointing because it has tainted the intent of the whole pro-independence movement.

ROC could end up handing itself over considering all the secret negotiations that 'one China' KMT party members keep having with PRC representatives. And as relatively successful as the SAR system has been in HK, I don't know if PRC can apply it to Taiwan without significant losses for Taiwan's society. It's such a different scale, and unless the US plays the same sort of part for Taiwan that the UK did with HK, there simply won't be enough leverage for KMT to make any good arrangement.

Re:Don't ya think?

[lgw]

Man, speaking of tantrums - you really fly off the handle when your beloved communism is insulted, don't you? But do I get the core of your argument? "No True Communism would ever oppress its people"?