Chinese Man Sues State-Owned Cell Phone Company For Blocking Google 78
jfruh writes China is notorious for censoring the Internet for its citizens, and access in the country became particularly spotty last year as the government tried to block any commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Tiannamen Square massacre. But now one Chinese man is striking back through the courts. A 26-year-old legal practitioner is suing his cell phone company, the government-owned China Unicom, and demanding a refund for periods in which he was unable to access Gmail or Google's Hong Kong search page.
Good luck with that. (Score:1)
Hope he enjoys his unmarked mass grave.
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And his relatives will equally enjoy the bill for the bullets used for his execution..
GERMAN MAN SUES REICH-OWNED AUTO MFR (Score:2, Funny)
Hey! There wasn't any racism in that, was there Chinaman?
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What'll more likely happen, is he'll have 'a mental breakdown' as a result of the stress of the proceedings, and have to be institutionalized 'for his own health and safety', where he'll be drugged to the gills -- until one day months or years later he'll 'recover' and recant his actions against the State 'because he was obviously having mental/emotional problems that were affecting his judgement' or somesuch. Naturally his family will foot the bill for his 'hospi
Re:Just curious ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Good luck. Nice knowing you. (Score:5, Insightful)
The rule of law isn't quite ready for prime time in China. I applaud his courage, but I'm afraid he will wind up some place unpleasant. Deng Xiaoping made a deal with the people after Tienanmen: capitalism, as long as the Chinese Communist Party remains in control. This would strike at that control. The CCP, not the state, runs things.
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I don't understand why a Chinese citizen would sue the state. I've been told this is the government they want!
The same argument can be made for every democracy. If the government was voted into power by the people, why would anyone from the people ever want to sue the government? Clearly there is no need to allow for that in a democracy.
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Even if people like their government in general some may not agree.
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Yeah, black bagged and disappeared is probably whats going to happen.
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I think the basic outline of the CCP plan is just to convert their military/political power into such overwhelming economic power through crony capitalism that even free and open democracy won't make any difference in who is running things.
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capitalism that even free and open democracy won't make any difference in who is running things
So just like in America? ;D
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Yes, just like that.
Wait—were you making a joke?
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Well I suppose on a long enough timeline, it is a joke but its not very funny within our lifetime.
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I'm not so sure about this. I could see an argument being made where the cell phone carrier blocked the service, and not the PRC government. Yes, the carrier was told to do so by the government (or CCP, which are not necessarily exactly the same thing). But, according to the PRC constitution, they are not allowed to censor needlessly. Rather than have the government lose face, the carrier is found to have needlessly censored.
I do not believe that this would cause any changes down the road, but this case
I dont think people understand whats going on (Score:3)
China of 2014 is not the same as China of 1974.
Will his lawsuit win...uh probably not but hes following legal channels and not publicly protesting. In theory hes not suing the government
hes suing his cell phone company.
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More likely it will be a public statement about how, after a thorough examination in the courts, they found the phone company not guilty and how pleased he is with the result.
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Nonsense. They can't make him "disappear" with the world's press on the story like bloodhounds. They'll wait until a squirrel runs past, THEN kill him. But we will not hear about it because OMG, someone famous for being famous sneezed yesterday!
Good luck (Score:4, Funny)
Long Wang sure has a lot of balls to do this
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Get it, their names are not Indo-European in nature.
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No, that's not the joke. The joke is that some Asian names overlap with genitalia slang in English, and genitalia puns are funny. Most pairs of languages have such humorous overlaps.
Gosh I hate having to explain jokes, it really ruins the sense.
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Lots of Spanish words can be guessed at because they are similar to English. One notable exception is "Embarasada", it doesn't mean embarrassed, it means pregnant, so it can lead to some funny misunderstandings. Like, "why are you embarrased?" ... "I'm not, I'm pregnant!".
Well done! (Score:2)
No he should have used (Score:2)
Astalavista http://www.astalavista.box.sk/ [astalavista.box.sk]
OTOH, if he's NOT crazy stupid... (Score:5, Interesting)
That a citizen believes he can openly criticize his government without peril means, at the very least, that public perception of China is improving.
Not to force a Snowden parallel, but he believed something like this once.
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A Chinese Snowden would never reveal his name.
However, if he went to the US for refuge, money could change hands and we might hand him over. Because money is free speech over here and all that.
So on balance; no better and no worse to be a whistleblower.
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if i was china, i wouldn't want my peeps using google. it will result in MASSIVE American data collection and knowledge of everything that chinese people are searching for online. A major risk to national stability/security.
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if i was china, i wouldn't want my peeps using google. it will result in MASSIVE American data collection and knowledge of everything that chinese people are searching for online. A major risk to national stability/security.
They don't block/degrade Google access in order to prevent information about citizens from leaking out to the rest of the world. They do it to prevent information from the rest of the world from reaching their citizens.
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This is probably (my guess) a safe thing for him to do. The result of the suit, however, will probably not be to his liking.
I expect that the court will decide that the ISP was acting in the interests of the country, and they he is not entitled to any refund. He may well pay court costs and his ISP's attorneys fees.
The current evidence seems to indicate that criticizing individual officials or agencies is accepted within China, what is forbidden is anything that calls for group action, even in support of
Jail time await the litigator (Score:1)
Is China more free than the USA? (Score:2)
It's funny, but even though it seems like a "momma state" issue that they block access to a website, I can't imagine someone suing a company for what the NSA or FBI did and being successful.
Police using heavy handed techniques and traffic lights to procure revenue in your area? Good luck with that.
We have this impression of China as a place where the state does what it wants without repercussions -- but this court case tells me that I've got to reevaluate that image. It's not the China of 20 years ago.
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You're right.
China has gotten better (in some ways).
And the US (and the rest of the world) has gotten far worse (in some ways).
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The USA isn't the worldÂs leading democracy.
The weird organisations you have is .. weird.
I wanted to say that your government wouldn't go to that extent to hide what they was doing but then again with the CIA I guess they are ok with at least trying to hide things from you.
Have CIA blocked access to Wikileaks? No.
One mistake (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately for him, the judge is also state-owned.
Blocking Google (Score:2, Troll)
Chinese Man Sues State-Owned Cell Phone Company For Blocking Google
Can I pay Verizon to block Google for me?
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Chinese Man Sues State-Owned Cell Phone Company For Blocking Google
Instead of suing, he should be thankful for the privacy service they are providing.
Where do I sign up? (Score:3)
Ok first of all - in China, you can certainly sue state owned enterprises. It's likely about as successful as say, suing a corporation in the US with massive lobbyists, of course, and the guy acknowledges this. Second - in his own words - he's making a statement. Where's the class action possibility, I'd love to see how ridiculous it would get if it was opened up to be a class action of sorts, given that we're talking about hundreds of millions of subscribers all with gripes about censorship. To all the dumb fucks commenting above this - why you gotta hate on someone trying to fight for his rights, isn't that the FOUNDATION of freedom and a founding principal of the rights in the nations many of you call home? Give me a break, rather than be a douchebag why not be supportive of this type of positive fight.
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I don't usually respond to AC, but, your response had sufficient effort that it demands one.
First, I'll start by saying it's clear you don't know much about China, or Chinese law. Your perspective is flawed simply because it appears to be based on illusions/speculations/whatever media you've been fed or led to believe rather than facts. Do you really think the comparison between US courts and China courts -- ala "if US courts wouldn't.....gee gosh, how could you expect CHINESE courts to!" -- you realize the
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Given the AC's premise is wrong, that following regulations itself is indemnifying, then how would one expect anything else in t
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I don't think he's doing anything dangerous, just expensive.
And you could sue you State Authorized and controlled ISP in the US. It wouldn't be dangerous, just expensive.
You can also use the government in the US, and probably in China. The government may tell you to piss off in either country, but as long as you follow legal channels I don't expect it to be anything more than expensive.
N.B.: *IF* he were trying to initiate a mass action, then I expect that he would be in significant trouble in China. Mo