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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: 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]