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Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo died in custody on Thursday. Now comes the censorship:
After Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident and 2010 Nobel Peace laureate, died in custody on Thursday evening, his Chinese admirers went online to voice their sympathy and grief — and countless government censors buckled down for a long night's work.
The Chinese government's drive to silence discussion of Liu — who died of liver cancer at age 61 — predates even 2009, when he was handed an 11-year sentence for helping draft Charter 08, a document calling for multiparty democracy and freedom of speech. On Chinese social networks, searches for "Liu Xiaobo" return nothing, and most Chinese citizens barely know his name.
Yet on Friday, China's social media sites were filled with expressions of solidarity and grief, suggesting that Liu's case — and his ideals — may be more influential in China than many outsiders believe. These expressions were often cryptic and muted — snatches of poetry, allegorical quotes — but still, the censors responded in force.
On Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, they deleted photos of Liu and his wife, Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest since Liu's arrest, though she has never been charged with a crime. They blocked flickering candle emojis, the letters RIP and LXB, and the dates "1955-2017," the years of Liu's birth and death. They removed poems by Liu and Liu Xia; photos of the South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1993; and even the phrase: "someone died today."
"I think this kind of pokes a hole in the narrative that he's not well known in China," said William Nee, a Hong Kong-based researcher at Amnesty International. "I don't know if I'd characterize this as a paradigm shift. But it might be that some of the seeds he'd started to plant — or, the ideas in Charter 08 — have started to bear fruit among the rights defense community, and they're becoming more well known and are spreading among parts of the general public."
[...] Yet Friday's outpouring of support also exposed some of the censorship apparatus' weaknesses. On Friday, "LXB" was censored, but "XB" was not. The Chinese word for candle — 蜡烛 — was censored, but adding a space between the characters — 蜡 烛 — brought up several results, many related to Liu's death.
This editorial will set you straight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @11:42PM (2 children)
revealing state secrets that threatens one's nation against outside military forces
Y'know, if governments (USA, China, et al.) weren't so goddamned obsessed with aggression, Imperialism, and Mercantilism, this wouldn't be a problem.
Costa Rica hasn't had a military since shortly after WWII and things are going swimmingly there.
Costa Rica Has Healthcare, Education, & Pensions For All Because They Scrapped Their Army In 1948 [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [dissidentvoice.org]
The "Security State" thing is mostly unnecessary bullshit.
N.B. The speech by Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) is really silly when you realize that USA.gov is occupying part of Cuba.)
...and, OBTW, what are all these big goddamned secrets that are kept from the citizens of the USA such that they don't even know where their taxes are being spent.
That sounds like Totalitarianism to me.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday July 16 2017, @09:27AM (1 child)
Mind you, you're expanding and paraphrasing the "nothing to hide" argument to nations. There are vulnerabilities that security can't be provided for that should at least be kept obscure until a solution can present itself. Vulnerable infrastructure... Security arrangements for dignitaries... Even the budget reports for projects addressing the former two. It's always a problem that challenges the need of the public to make an informed decision.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:09PM
Yeah, nations have always had a need for -some- level of secrecy.
I did qualify my response with "mostly".
The problem is with the quantities of information that get classified and the number of low-level people who get to apply that label, resulting in the "Security State".
Making e.g. the lunch menu for a meeting classified is simply abusive of the process.
If classification of information required the signature of e.g. a 2-star or higher, the problem would go away:
A general would quickly realize that he doesn't have that much spare time to waste on trivial nonsense and he would immediately rein in the excesses.
I'm reminded of the counterargument made by the pro-abortion crowd:
Abortions should be safe, legal, and RARE.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]