In China, GitHub Is a Free Speech Zone for Covid Information (wired.com) 28
As coronavirus news was increasingly trapped behind the Great Firewall, the programming platform became a refuge from censorship. It may not last long. From a report: When the coronavirus first spread through China in January, Chinese PhD student Weilei Zeng watched the pandemic unfold online from his apartment in Riverside, California. Thousands of miles from home, he frantically tried to keep up with news of the crisis, following the rare outpouring of discontent that flooded Chinese social media: lockdown diaries penned by anxious patients; video footage of overcrowded hospitals; tributes to Li Wenliang, the young doctor who was reprimanded for "rumor-mongering" when he first warned the public about the virus (and would die of Covid-19 only a month later). Then, inevitably, as Chinese censors stepped in to scrub the internet clean, Zeng would return to a link he'd visited just a few days earlier to find only the familiar 404 error message -- indicating that the page had vanished. Zeng soon discovered that these posts were not gone. Many had been preserved and quietly tucked away in an unexpected corner of the internet: GitHub, the world's largest open source software site. Founded in 2008 and acquired by Microsoft in 2018, GitHub is popular among developers and programmers, who use the platform mostly to share and crowdsource code. Zeng often used it as a way to collaborate with his university peers on research projects. But after the pandemic hit, he stumbled on thousands of Chinese internet users repurposing GitHub as a Covid-19 archive, racing against censors to document the outbreak in the form of news articles, medical journals, and personal accounts.
One collaborative project, known as a "repository," was named #2020nCovMemory. Founded by seven volunteers from around the world, it included everything from investigative reports published by Chinese news magazine Caixin to the diary entries of Wuhan writer Fang Fang, who criticized the local government's suppression of information and initial failure to warn the public about the virus. Another repository, called Terminus2049 -- named after a planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series -- collected sensitive articles that were otherwise inaccessible behind China's Great Firewall, such as an interview with Ai Fen, the doctor who first discovered the virus in December. In February, Zeng joined a repository called 2020nCov_individual_archives, to crowdsource online diary entries and citizens' accounts of everyday life during the pandemic. "It made me feel much more at peace, knowing that these stories were being saved somewhere," Zeng says. On the Chinese internet, global social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are banned, and domestic platforms like WeChat and Weibo are strictly monitored. But GitHub, known to some Chinese internet users as the "last land of free speech in China," remains accessible. Chinese authorities cannot censor individual projects, because GitHub uses the HTTPS protocol, which encrypts all traffic.
One collaborative project, known as a "repository," was named #2020nCovMemory. Founded by seven volunteers from around the world, it included everything from investigative reports published by Chinese news magazine Caixin to the diary entries of Wuhan writer Fang Fang, who criticized the local government's suppression of information and initial failure to warn the public about the virus. Another repository, called Terminus2049 -- named after a planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series -- collected sensitive articles that were otherwise inaccessible behind China's Great Firewall, such as an interview with Ai Fen, the doctor who first discovered the virus in December. In February, Zeng joined a repository called 2020nCov_individual_archives, to crowdsource online diary entries and citizens' accounts of everyday life during the pandemic. "It made me feel much more at peace, knowing that these stories were being saved somewhere," Zeng says. On the Chinese internet, global social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are banned, and domestic platforms like WeChat and Weibo are strictly monitored. But GitHub, known to some Chinese internet users as the "last land of free speech in China," remains accessible. Chinese authorities cannot censor individual projects, because GitHub uses the HTTPS protocol, which encrypts all traffic.
Sucks for the people in China (Score:5, Insightful)
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That should be moot. We shouldn't rely on leaders for important information, or at least have sufficient alternatives, because leaders have historically spun for political reasons and we shouldn't expect that to change.
Checks and balances is our society's most important tool. China is gradually losing that.
China is not "gradually" losing checks and balances. At the governmental level, it hasn't had even a glimmer for a very long time.
In the US, we get a lot of propaganda and lies from the government. However, it is a tremendous strength of the US system that checks and balances across the government (with competing parties, individuals, and organizations) and across society (with true freedom of the press, assembly, and individual speech) actually exist. In China, Woodward would be dead, election tinkering
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Before the leader declared himself leader for life, there was competition for the next rotation and related factions. Term limits had been intentionally added to prevent a blunt dictatorship. Now that it's removed, they got a blunt dictatorship.
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In China, Woodward would be dead, election tinkering would be moot, and public protests don't exist.
You are wrong at all counts:
* the Chinese equivalent of Woodward [caixinglobal.com] (*) and even the author whom many regard as rumor spreader [weibo.com], both of which are mentioned in the article, are not only live and kicking but their works have not been taken down. Simple facts the article conveniently didn't remind you about.
* surprise, tinkering with election [nytimes.com] is actually a profitable crime that has been carried out in China
* and not only protests exist in China, but there are about 180,000 per year [wikipedia.org]
Maybe you should get yourself mo
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In China, Woodward would be dead, election tinkering would be moot, and public protests don't exist.
You are wrong at all counts:
* the Chinese equivalent of Woodward [caixinglobal.com] (*) and even the author whom many regard as rumor spreader [weibo.com], both of which are mentioned in the article, are not only live and kicking but their works have not been taken down. Simple facts the article conveniently didn't remind you about.
There are no reporters that would dare publish a book that directly and repeatedly criticized and embarrased Xi Jinping. This does not happen in China, at least not by anyone who cares to stay alive. Some insignificant rumors are allowed, but nothing related to Xi is allowed.
* surprise, tinkering with election [nytimes.com] is actually a profitable crime that has been carried out in China
There's a reason that India and not China is recognized as the world's largest democracy, and that's because elections in China don't mean anything because the outcome has already been determined by the party. Because elections don't
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Saying that China has had a better Covid-19 response than the US is setting an extremely low bar.
I moved to China in 2014, had returned to it from the CNYear vacation by February 5th and was hunkered down alone observing its nationwide advisory quarantine. Before FEB5th, I was posting to Fark images of Soderbergh's film Contagion (Winslet explaining R-nought to a skeptical local committee) and a smart-ass was waiting to post the image of Paltrow convulsing as she died-- a scene turning off many from discerning the absolute science driving the film's plot. Soderbergh chose a far more virulent pathogen t
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That's why Trump has been hard at work dismantling all the checks and balances he can. Taking away independence from things like the State Department, appointing cronies where he can, getting rid of scientists, stacking the Supreme Court.
His biggest assault has been on the lugenpresse or "lying media" in English. Journalism is vital in democracy so naturally Trump has done all he can to prevent it holding him to account.
The Internet sees censorship as damage... (Score:2, Funny)
... and routes around it.
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... and routes around it.
Unfortunately, it's become obvious during the last half-decade this Slasdot meme fails once governments start fragmenting "the internet". It really only works if the Internet is allowed to function as designed - as one whole world-spanning network.
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The quote originates with John Gilmore, significantly before Slashdot was a thing. (His version started "The Net interprets...")
The effort of countries to create walled gardens is a race between the enforcers to catch new methods of flagging "problematic" material, and the users to find new ways around the filters. Putting content on Github is this week's battle in that war. It is exactly what Gilmore was referring to.
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The effort of countries to create walled gardens is a race between the enforcers to catch new methods of flagging "problematic" material, and the users to find new ways around the filters. Putting content on Github is this week's battle in that war. It is exactly what Gilmore was referring to.
It makes no sense to associate that with the internet. That's what humans have always tried to do when faced with censorship and other forms of oppression [wikipedia.org] - certainly way, way before the internet, and probably for as long as humans have existed.
Not going to last long (Score:2)
You know... I personally don't like their censorship, but exploiting other providers whose purpose is not to circumvent censorship Nor even to distribute publications to the detriment of technical collaborators and software projects is pretty shitty. Because its going to get sites that never signed up to do this banned in China, and its going to hurt many innocent parties who are not involved with the content intended to be censored.
This seems like an abuse of Github's services that will be detrimenta
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Need to use double speak (Score:2)
Giving innocuous phases double meanings makes it very hard for censors to monitor. Pooh Bear (for Xi) is crude. Terrorists used weddings -- if the Bride is late the bomb has yet to arrive.
I suspect that this already happens to a large degree in China. But I have not heard anything.
So if somebody sends you a Wechat "Looks like nice day, let's have coffee by the park" you should be afraid. Very afraid..l..
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Pooh Bear (for Xi) is crude
Yeah but that one's already being censored. The fight between double-meanings and censors went for a while in China, but I think the censors are mostly winning, not sure.
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Terrorists used weddings -- if the Bride is late the bomb has yet to arrive.
Some terrorists used some weddings.
I was exiting Saudi Arabia in 2013 after arriving in 2008 and risking deportation to explore Riyadh and Buraidah through a contractual dispute and meeting plenty of Yemens in Riyadh and warning Afghani's between those cities that if the frickin' King says you can buy cigarettes near a mosque, any pressure on locals to put them under the counter is a no-no.
You're oversimplifying a failed policy of indulged aggression from a client state. The United States green-lighted
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I'd rather have China off of GitHub anyway. It reduces several classes of problem.
/. strikes again (Score:2)
... and Arrested (Score:2)
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Challenge accepted! (Score:1)
"Chinese authorities cannot censor individual projects, because GitHub uses the HTTPS protocol, which encrypts all traffic." Because the Great Firewall can't MITM TLS...oh wait, it probably can. The CCP's TLS cert is already pre-installed in every major web browser.
The straw that broke the camel's back (Score:2)
But knowing they launch rockets, knowing not only big chunks of rockets are possibly going to land in populated areas, but those big chunks have highly toxic stuff like N2O4 and HN03 around them, and they flat out don't care.
Fuck Huawei an
Subject Oriented (Score:1)
Maybe if they blocked Github, their Great Firewall would stop working