Chinese Censors Are Being Watched

Rambo Tribble writes "The Economist is reporting on two research teams, one at Harvard and another at the University of Hong Kong, who have developed software to detect what posts to Chinese social media get censored. 'The team has built up a database comprising more than 11m posts that were made on 1,382 Chinese internet forums. Perhaps their most surprising result is that posts critical of the government are not rigorously censored. On the other hand, posts that have the purpose of getting people to assemble, potentially in protest, are swept from the internet within a matter of hours.' Chinese censors may soon have to deal with an unprecedented transparency of their actions."

Re:so what

[poity]

Here come the false equivalencies getting +5 in a matter of hours, too.
If you're in America, see if any of these sites are blocked
http://thepiratebay.se/ [thepiratebay.se]
http://www.mininova.org/ [mininova.org]
http://isohunt.com/ [isohunt.com]
http://www.demonoid.me/ [demonoid.me]
http://www.torrentreactor.net/ [torrentreactor.net]
No? Then your claim that "in america posts of copyrighted music are swept from the internet within hours" is false.

And the audacity of equating people who want to assemble and find redress with their local governments with those who want to get free mp3s. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this sad joke of a comparison. You'll only find naivete like this in the West. If you want to make some accurate comparisons, talk about police brutality in both countries, or maybe talk about Assange if he's ever extradited. In the meantime, get some perspective.

Re:so what

[LordLucless]

How about this one?
http://megaupload.com/ [megaupload.com]

Re:Well I'll be a big brother's uncle!

[amicusNYCL]

But when the discussion turns to protest or other forms of mass action, start censoring and nip it in the bud.

To add to that, and to show why the censors aren't shaking in their little space boots, a discussion of censorship would also trigger the censorship. This is how the censors "deal" with transparency of their actions, they hide it from The People. They don't really care if the rest of the world knows about it.

The solution = False Positives

[retroworks]

" " - that's the posting of words which are often edited ("assembly", "protest") in baidu after baidu, tweet after tweet. A billion people sending false positives, like "assemble a sandwich" or "protest the car engine" will make it extremely difficult for the censors to see what they are blocking. (I have posted the Simplified Chinese translation of "False Positive" at the beginning of this post, but it appears to be censored).

Re:Well I'll be a big brother's uncle!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The cynic might suggest that the Chinese have caught on to the existence of 'slacktivists', who find bitching on the internet to be cathartic; but are generally quite harmless, especially if you don't bother them in their favorite hobby.

(Says the guy whose username is 'fuzzyfuzzyfungus', on Slashdot, before no doubt going back to working for world peace or something...)

motivation?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty much unanimous that the Chinese are doing very well, thank you very much.

This begs the question what motivates Harvard (and the west in general) to "help" a country that clearly don't need "help"?
Perhaps Harvard could do more good directing it's resources on sub-Saharan Africa or India, or other world's real depraved locations that I'm sure the smart people at Harvard can Google out.
But instead we get a endless diarrhea of "Big Bad China" bowel movements.
So is Harvard's true motivation to "help" somebody who don't need our "help"? Or are there hidden, more nefarious agenda?
Inquiring minds want to know.