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from the what-about-the-ones-you-did-NOT-catch? dept.
Chinese authorities have detained a software developer for selling computer services that allow internet users to evade China's "Great Firewall," which blocks access to thousands of websites, from Facebook to Twitter to some news outlets, a media report said Monday.
The software developer, who is from the coastal province of Jiangsu, near Shanghai, was arrested in late August and held for three days for building a small business to sell virtual private networks, the Global Times newspaper reported, citing the official Xinhua news agency. VPNs create encrypted links between computers and allow Chinese web users to see blocked sites by hiding the address from government filters.
Subscribers paid 10 yuan, or about $1.50, for one month of the developer's service. Authorities also seized the developer's earnings, which totaled 1,080 yuan, or about $165.
Some internet businessmen have faced far harsher punishments: Earlier this year, a 26-year-old entrepreneur who sold VPN services in Dongguan, near Hong Kong, was sentenced to nine months in prison.
How far away from having this happen in the West are we, really?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jmorris on Tuesday September 19 2017, @04:11PM (13 children)
As an AC post it is unimportant babbling. It is the mods who should be embarrassed unto the point of self immolation. Or worse, they really DO agree and this IS what Progs believe. Not sure which is more terrifying, Stupidity on this scale or Elemental Evil this unafraid of showing itself.
So much here to work with, where to start....
Yea, because it is SO much better when the #FakeNews is fed in a steady stream from the organs of the State. Ever actually LOOKED at what Chinese State run media push out to the masses? Or to shiv ya closer to the bone, do you even read the New York Times? Ok, those to not "destabilize" the State, but they destroy civil society by eliminating the possibility of an informed citizenry and thus make self governance a joke. But then most Progs agree that the State is the prime mover and the masses are sheep to be lead, slaughtered, etc. to serve the needs of the rulers.
Not saying the Internet has lived up to its potential, but it has certainly done more in the two decades where it has been widespread enough to matter to make it possible to be informed. It just ain't easy yet. Two words: Matt Drudge.
No. That is not how Science works. At all. The allies of Galileo didn't lock up the Pope and his Cardinals, ban them from publishing, etc. until they agreed to accept the Heliocentric view. He won the argument because once the telescope existed it was impossible to maintain the opposing position. The 6000 year old Earth theory likewise had problems standing up to reality. If you have to censor the opposition you can be fairly certain that you are in a POLITICAL disagreement, not a Scientific one. You f*cking morons can't really tell the difference anymore, everything is political.
There can be no censorship in Science for many reasons. But the biggest is this: There is no Science Pope decreeing what the official and Holy position of Science is this year. No Al Gore is not the Science Pope. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is not the Science Pope. Bill Nye is not the Science Pope. There is no Science Pope.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 19 2017, @04:18PM (4 children)
Fucked up world we live in where I end up agreeing with you on just about anything. Oh well...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @04:41PM (1 child)
Naw it is just that China is the great evil and we must use that caricature to promote "the land of the free". I still agree with most of the statements, I just doubt their authenticity. At the very least the statements are profoundly naive and quite hypocritical given his statements in the past. As long as the Great Evils are coming from private corporations it is OK because it is a "choice" to use whatever Great Evil you need. He just sidesteps the fact that these giants are able to purchase their power and are intertwined with the gov. But of course the blame only goes to the gov, unless its an evil west coast tech company. #hypocrisy #grudgingapproval
If he is a real person he needs to broaden his perspective so he can step outside the partisan divide. Corrupted power is non-partisan as the DNC and GOP have made painfully clear.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:04PM
That sounds just as authentic a criticism as an American Chinese meal.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:58PM (1 child)
The only one I hear advocating internet censorship is our Republican President, not exactly a Progressive.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:29PM
Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner. The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off and use better! We're losing a lot of people because of the internet and we have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to them, maybe in certain areas closing that internet up in some way. Somebody will say, "oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech." These are foolish people. We've got to maybe do something with the internet because they are recruiting by the thousands, they are leaving our country and then when they come back, we take them back. We've got to close our borders to people who have gone on the internet and become terrorists. Who go on the internet, become terrorists, leave, and come back with bad electronics. Bringing bad electronics on a plane, very big danger. I warned Sergey. Warned the Russian foreign minister about it. But I never mentioned the word or the name Israel. Never mentioned Israel in that conversation. They’re all saying I did, that's fake news. Another story wrong. Never mentioned the word Israel. 🇺🇸
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @04:55PM (3 children)
You are missing the point of what I ever meant by *censorship*. Censorship is also weeding out the crap from the real. Any filtering is CENSORSHIP, be that self-censorship or otherwise. People like Germany censor NAZI messages - is it so bad?
Science censors "alternative views" through scientific consensus.
What is amazing to me is people being indoctrinated into "censorship == evil" with same same zeal as "communism == evil" and then labelling anything and everything into the appropriate category. Socialized healthcare? COMMUNISM! EVIL!
The entire point of what I tried to make is
1. censorship is not evil, just like a knife is not evil
2. we are already censoring all over the place, but we call it "manners" and "editing"
3. are we really going to compare NYT to InfoWars? People want credible source of information. That's why there are JOBS like journalist.
As for China, I already wrote what China views as main problem - strife and public unrest.
Really? So one way you argue "science" and then you argue that only "progs" .... right ... so I'm certain it is the "progs" that want creationism to be taught as "alternative view" ??? You know, because "they" are the sheep after all.
Maybe get off your high-horse and look at the world objectively for once. Because you are also one of the "progs" being led straight to the slaughter. Except your "prime mover" is Breitbart hole-see. I mean you are already in the hole - you've already decreed that only "progs" are capable of being led to slaughter, while you are already being led by your nose ring and don't even know it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:09PM
Yes. Although it is futile to explain this to an authoritarian cretin of the highest order, government censorship is, in fact, wrong. I'm not sure why anyone would ever trust the government to decide what should and should not be censored after considering the countless ways all governments violated people's rights in the past and in the present, but I guess I answered my own question in that last sentence.
Supporting free speech is natural for anyone who cares about freedom.
Now you're going to argue that self-censorship is similar to government censorship? They have totally different implications. Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this equivocation.
(Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:21PM
Bollocks. Filtering is *only* censorship if you are *in control of the medium*. Noone controls the media within which academic journals operate - if you don't like the filtering that reviewers and editors perform in your field of study you are free to find or found an alternative journal.
Note that I'm not saying science is a bed of roses,far from it, it's rife with corruption because there's too much money dependence, but groupthink is not censorship; if anything, it's an opportunity to have a voice that really stands out from the crowd, at least if you're demonstrably more right (i.e. less wrong) than the others.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday September 20 2017, @12:01AM
That is wrong. Words have meaning. From a dictionary [oxforddictionaries.com]:
In particular, it doesn't mean editing, it doesn't mean people filtering out crap from real, or peer review, etc.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
The tragedy of it is that the State does not achieve the progressive goals progressives want, and yet they cling to the State and ask themselves 'what can be done?' And as long as they're not the ones being personally affected by its dysfunction, they make expressions of guilt and remorse and throw their hands up to the heavens, asking, "Why, God, why," but accept it. It never occurs to them that the State is a human construct, and can be re-constructed or deconstructed if it does not work.
This is true even of the deepest blue places where Republican opposition is non-existent. New York City is such a place. There are a mere handful of Republican candidates for anything, and they never have a snowball's chance in Hell of beating the Democrat. The city's education system is totally fucked, totally racist, totally segregated. And in the city's most progressive neighborhoods, the bluest of the bluest of the blue, they play along with the fucked, racist, segregated system as long as their own children aren't personally affected. As long as their children are excused, they don't give an actual damn, and do nothing about it beyond limp protestation about how unfair the world is. The people in charge of that system, who could absolutely change it, throw their hands up in the air and say, "What can we do," knowing full well that changing anything is riskier to their careers than the status quo.
That is why the State as an entity is no solution to mankind's ills, until such time as we have further perfected humanity itself. The State, any state, has to be regarded as a temporary convention to order collective action, but it cannot be reified the way it has or evil ensues. We're living through that evil now.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:37PM
...unless you look at e.g. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
Note that those places have STRONG LABOR UNIONS as major influences on their Democracies.
I read a really good article on the topic within the last 2 weeks and now I can't find it. 8-(
In the USA, I put major blame for weak Democracy on Lamestream Media and those poorly-informed people who still consume that corporate-friendly crap and think that they're well-informed.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @09:31PM
WRT "the State as an entity is no solution"
Why Denmark Is So Happy (The Nordic Economic Model Makes Sense) by George Lakey [wagingnonviolence.org]
...and this is despite the ongoing assault from Neoliberals|Reactionaries|Capitalists and (previously) Stalinists from the east.
The "Scandinavian Model" (Liberal Democracy Breaks Down Easily & Is No Substitute For Socialism) by Jordan Shilton [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [wsws.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:55PM
they really DO agree and this IS what Progs believe.
"Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner," he wrote. "The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better!" - Donald J Trump four days ago