Citizen Journalism Combating Chinese Censorship 86
teh_commodore writes to tell us that Breitbart has a look at how Citizen Journalism is shining a whole new light on China. "Recognizing the threat of China's growing online community, Chinese President Hu Jintao called in January for the Internet to be 'purified', and the government has since launched a number of online crackdowns. [...] 'One cannot truly say that the Internet in China is becoming more and more free, because at the same time as the development of citizen journalists, the government finds ways of blocking or censoring content,' Pain said."
Local authority vs. National authority (Score:2)
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While I realize that a vast portion of the population is very poor and thus quite unlikely to have the means to procure such "unauthorized"
Not Likely (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you organize the memory hole? The problem with censored electronic media is that it eliminates the ability to reference. If your references disappear and organizers are put in jail, there will only be one coherent story.
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Interesting site (Score:4, Interesting)
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I don't think I can fully support that claim, but I can substantiate it a bit. My blog is mostly related to free software, copyright issues and other problems that I like to discuss. I get a *significant* amount of traffic from China, and find my pages uncensored in the SE caches there.
Likewise, my hg repos get tickled often from China. Because of the stupid NATS and pr
Déj vu all over again (Score:2)
from someone who was in Hong Kong:
And once again we choose not to focus too much on certain reports. China is in the midst of a historic buildup of its military. China is cracking down on unofficial news sources and asking citizens to report any unauthorized news postings on the Web./quote)
Re:Déj vu all over again (Score:2)
http://www.eetimes.com/op/showArticle.jhtml?artic
Benefits of Technology (Score:1)
Hot Button Words (Score:5, Insightful)
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but we must not merely look within to find the enemy; there is, too, the enemy without: these (xenos|muslims|capitalists)... the more i look at them, the more i come to know them, the more i come to hate them. i hate them not
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Do they.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Have they forgot how Chinese invaded Tibet and displaced the Buddhists?
Has anybody forgot Tiananmen Square? They hunted down amateur and professional footage alike so they could go and assassinate the dissidents.
Or in recent times, have they forgot about the forced abortions that the Chinese government puts women through for violating "Birth Law"?
And now they wish to "clean up" the Internet. Awwww. It doesnt fit in their view of authoritarian communism.
Who I do feel sad for
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Change from within would be nice, but there is no way change can come from within unless there is pressure from without.
Nobody could challenge the Roman empire at its height, of course, but nobody from within could have challenged it even after the political system had started rotting. It took an outside force to economically and militarily bring down the government. Change occurred within, but it required forces from without.
The many revolutions against the European powers in the 18th-20th centu
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Sort of an important point that you missed there, since it is a way in which that republic completely differs from China.
That and the abuses of one country do not justify the abuses of another.
not that easy to free themselves (Score:2, Insightful)
For one thing, you have to hope that a George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc. exist simultaneously around the same time. And also that they have the tools need to mount an effective resistance. Not every country is lucky enough to get people like that.
The other MAJOR problem is the lack of weaponry. You see, people seem to be willing to give up all kinds of liberties when the slightest amount of feart is introduced. Now imagine the threat agai
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This is a very good point, and a very good reason to support anonymous [freenetproject.org] free speech. Real rebels wear masks. They are a neccessary safety device. That they are also the tools of trade for bank robbers does not change this.
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Have they forgot how Chinese invaded Tibet and displaced the Buddhists? Has anybody forgot Tiananmen Square? They hunted down amateur and professional footage alike so they could go and assassinate the dissidents.
For these, nobody cares anymore.
Or in recent times, have they forgot about the forced abortions that the Chinese government puts women through for violating "Birth Law"?
For these, people do either (1) illegally ultrasound the fetus to identify the gender and abort girls; (2) pay up the penalty (which is tiny for rich people); (3) fret away and give birth anyway.
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And how do you propose they do that when the vast majority don't realise the problem is that bad, or that they *could* do something about it?
That's the entire point of censorship: to keep people in the dark about the gravity of their situation. And in almost all of mainland China, it's working perfectly.
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Who I do feel sad for are the people who live there, as many of them did NOT bring this upon themselves, however, it IS up to them to free this country of an evil tyranny.
So... let me get this straight. You're telling Chinese citizens to free themselves of "evil tyranny"? You're telling them to revolt against their government so that they could get themselves killed? Lose a chunk of the population, chuck a few people out the window? Well, of course that's the perfect solution! After thousands and thousands of deaths, the communist government will be overthrown and the world will be a better place. Thanks.
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Seriou
China IS getting more free. (Score:3, Interesting)
Censorship is a tool used when you're losing control. Scary things are about to happen, and China doesn't anyone to know.
Re:China IS getting more free. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Chinese Communists have been using censorship since the very beginning, so it's rather silly to state "It's a sign they're losing control", when it is simply the way things are done in China. The difference is now that circumventing that censorship is a good deal easier. It is forcing the Chinese government to be more responsive to the needs of people. It's a pity that these tools hadn't been available during truly tragic periods of recent Chinese history (The Great Leap Forward).
Re:How Is This News For Nerds?? (Score:4, Funny)
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Ever hear of the term 'IT' ? Informational Technologies?
I'd say this certainly involves the transfer of information, or lack thereof.
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Let's say you write a fairly Apple- and Linux-centric blog (we'll call it 'athloidot') and your advertisers, who are Microsoft-centric, demand that you start posting nice things about Microsoft products. You, as the editorial staff, can either bend over and grease up, writing some nice stuff about Vista, or, you can tell the advertisers to politely fuck off and go get yourself another set of advertisers.
Now, the bloggers in China cannot
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I mean, in the first case, even if you say, "Damn the consequences, I'm going to write that article!"... the article gets removed and no one can read it. In the second case, the article remains published any you suffer the consequences. To me, there is a huge distinction there.
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Amen, brother. It never ceases to amaze me how many people on /. argue that US censorship isn't really censorship because it's "appropriate censorship". We'll be oppressed, just like the Chinese, until more of us finally start to realize that we are.
Censorship, the American way (Score:1)
Maybe we don't need a Big Brother in this country, we're all conspiring to misinform ourselves.
Yes yes (Score:2)
Yes, purified I say. And, squish all bugs. Yes, every single bug is to be found and squished....
The cycle continues..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Getting it Backwards Again (Score:2)
Assistance from the West (Score:5, Insightful)
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When my parent's showed local friends a family picture (5 children), a few women wept because of a government mandated law of one child per couple.
One interesting thing they noticed, though, is a positive side effect of their free
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I've been there -- Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Ningbo, Guilin, and about eight small factory towns.
There are two things I will not criticize publicly until I'm retired or travelling: Islamic extremists and the Chinese government.
My sense is that it's like those countries with draconian drug laws (e.g. the death penalty for smuggling); you're fine as long as you don't get somehow associated with drugs (e.g. something planted on you). If that happens, you are up the creek...no right to counsel, a fair tr
Re:Have any of you even been to China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in the US if you want to sell hot dogs you need about a hundred government permits. There are forms and taxes and fees just to hire the guy to run the pushcart and there is a business license and health inspectors and so on and so on. the goernment even tells you how long you can keep a hot dog after you heat it and how and where is get rid of the hot dogs you can't sell. Every stage of a hot dog vending in the US is regulated and controled by the government. In China if you want to sell hot dogs all you need is are some hot dogs. If you want to sell a picture of Micky Mouse on a tee shirt all you need is some ink and tee shirts, no need to ask Disney first I think much of China works this way. People just do what they want and if they don't cause any trouble are left alone. I won't argue it this is a good thing or bad. Maybe it's best to give up some freedom so we can eat USDA inspected hot dogs.
But the governments are different. In the US the leaders know and accept that they will leave office one day and they are pretty sure the system of government will continue on. In China the government took power and holds power by force and the goal of the leadership is to remain in office for life.
So in some way the people in China are more free. They can do as they
like as long is that is no threat the government.
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It's not the case of "We have freedom, they don't!" It's more of a "We have one kind of freedom and one kind of government control, they have different kinds of freedom and government control." It's about time we all stop thinking in black-and-white terms.
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[quote]People just do what they want and if they don't cause any trouble are left alone.[/quote] Correction... People just do what they want and if they agree with everything the government says and do everything they ask only then are they lef
China will be truly free only when... (Score:1)
China will never become another USA and it is foolish to want that. You'd probably see them becoming a socialist democracy sort of like a combination of India, Germany and Russia. That'll do for now.
As for their inter-tubes, till their yoke is lifted, don't expect any miracles under their current administration.
Why can't you just mind your own business? (Score:1, Informative)
That's the billboard system hosted on China's highest ranking official propaganda website, controlled directly by the top propaganda division of the communist party. Well, just list a few post titles from the front page:
- What does it tell that 70% of the corruptions and bribes are through the wives and mistresses?
- Reporting the "black kiln" in sadness and horrors.
- Is the Nanjing government going backwards in regulating the housing price?
- 24 ways to e
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Not Breitbart at all (Score:2)