Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday January 07 2019, @02:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer dept.

The New York Times has an article about China's online censorship factories and how they operate. Censors are specially educated accurately in history and politics so that they have mastery over how to spot and eliminate references, even indirect ones, to forbidden topics. Potential employees for censorship factories have to cram for two weeks for a comprehensive exam which they must pass in order to begin work. This education is followed by ongoing training which includes regularly visiting and reviewing web sites normally blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

Li Chengzhi had a lot to learn when he first got a job as a professional censor.

Like many young people in China, the 24-year-old recent college graduate knew little about the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. He had never heard of China’s most famous dissident, Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died in custody two years ago.

Now, after training, he knows what to look for — and what to block. He spends his hours scanning online content on behalf of Chinese media companies looking for anything that will provoke the government’s wrath. He knows how to spot code words that obliquely refer to Chinese leaders and scandals, or the memes that touch on subjects the Chinese government doesn’t want people to read about.

Previously:
Censorship a Trojan Horse (2018)
Unpublished Chinese Censorship Document Reveals Effort to Eradicate Online Political Content (2018)
The "Great Cannon" of China (2015)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 07 2019, @04:18PM (8 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 07 2019, @04:18PM (#783226) Journal

    True - but - let's be fair. I don't like making excuses for either the Chinese, or their government, but honesty forces us to consider a few things.

    Right here in the US, industrialization destroyed a helluva lot of the environment. Love Canal for one, the burning river in Chicago, and at least a couple dozen other Superfund sites. There were hundreds of other sites that were terrible, but didn't qualify for Superfund. Bootstrapping an industrial nation isn't easy, and there will be a lot of screwups along the way. To give credit where credit is due, I think it has taken China less time to address the problems of pollution, than it took the United States.

    Next - there was a lot of shitty manufacturing going on, here in the US, and everywhere else in their early days of industry. I hold out Japan as an example. When I was a small child, "Made in Japan" was synonymous with "junk". No one wanted the stuff. Japan countered Americans refusing to buy anything made in Japan by founding a village or town, called "USA". So, the bauble said "Made in USA", and Americans bought it. Today? Japan is known for it's high quality automobiles, among other things. The US in it's best days never equalled Japanese quality control in the auto industry.

    China is gaining the education, experience, and knowhow that we had 70 or 80 years ago. They will get there.

    Unfortunately, we here in the US are sliding backward. We no longer have the millions of steelworkers and autoworkers who supplied the world with much of it's automotive needs. Yeah, we still have a cadre who might train the next generation - but it isn't really clear that the next generation is going to do that kind of work.

    China is also cracking down on the kind of corruption that lead to poisoned milk products. I don't trust them yet, but we do know that they are addressing the problem.

    Remember, the Chinese were nothing more than a fourth world possession of various nations over the past couple centuries. They were held back somewhere between the 12th and 15th centuries, for the profit of England, and then various other Euro nations, and then Japan, and finally Russia. It takes time to move into the age of industry.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Offtopic=1, Interesting=1, Informative=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Offtopic' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Monday January 07 2019, @04:55PM (6 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 07 2019, @04:55PM (#783238) Journal

    To give credit where credit is due, I think it has taken China less time to address the problems of pollution, than it took the United States.

    Note that China has barely started to address the problems of their pollution. Meanwhile, a significant part of the US's pollution problem on the West Coast comes straight over from China. I'd wait on giving that credit. Same goes for most of that list. China has done some remarkable stuff, but so have most countries of the world, including the US.

    Remember, the Chinese were nothing more than a fourth world possession of various nations over the past couple centuries. They were held back somewhere between the 12th and 15th centuries, for the profit of England, and then various other Euro nations, and then Japan, and finally Russia. It takes time to move into the age of industry.

    They got that way by growing complacent. In the 15th century, China was the most powerful and advanced country in the world. Odds are good that they'll be in that position again by the end of this century. But the lesson of those in-between centuries is that one can't expect the world to stop for them.

    • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday January 08 2019, @12:17AM (5 children)

      by legont (4179) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @12:17AM (#783481)

      In the 15th century, China was the most powerful and advanced country in the world. Odds are good that they'll be in that position again by the end of this century.

      Odds are, by 2030.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 08 2019, @06:20PM (4 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 08 2019, @06:20PM (#783778) Journal

        Odds are, by 2030.

        No way. They'll probably be close to or just past having leading GDP by then. But they'll still have some catch up to do to get to the technology and standard of living of the rest of the developed world. 2050 would be the earliest I'd put forth unless the rest of the developed world screws up massively somehow.

        • (Score: 2) by legont on Thursday January 10 2019, @01:46AM (3 children)

          by legont (4179) on Thursday January 10 2019, @01:46AM (#784404)

          Standard of living, yes, it'll take some more time. As per technology, financial and military power, and overall leadership, 10 more years will do it, I think. Unless there is a war.

          We should expect Japan's level per capita in similar to Japan's time frame. And let's not forget that the rest of the region will move forward even faster. It'd be a miracle if the US still has hegemony position in 10 years.

          --
          "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 10 2019, @02:26AM (2 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 10 2019, @02:26AM (#784419) Journal

            As per technology, financial and military power, and overall leadership, 10 more years will do it, I think.

            They're not that close. Plus, I think there's at least one huge economic correction in China's future like what happened to the Japanese in 1990. Move wrong on that and they might be indefinitely behind the developed world.

            • (Score: 2) by legont on Thursday January 10 2019, @04:16AM (1 child)

              by legont (4179) on Thursday January 10 2019, @04:16AM (#784463)

              Well, my bet is that in 10 years we will have 1990 Japan adjusted for the population size of China. This should be more than enough to make it the leader.

              I'd agree with you if a serious recession is to happen now - withing 2-3 years - but it got to be a Chinese only recession and a long deep one at that, which is not very likely. Japan got their lost decades only after they achieved comparable living standard.

              --
              "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 11 2019, @05:14AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 11 2019, @05:14AM (#784904) Journal

                Well, my bet is that in 10 years we will have 1990 Japan adjusted for the population size of China. This should be more than enough to make it the leader.

                They're not that close and they have a huge number of rural people that they need to deal with. And keep in mind that neither the US or EU are standing still for them.

                I'd agree with you if a serious recession is to happen now - withing 2-3 years - but it got to be a Chinese only recession and a long deep one at that, which is not very likely. Japan got their lost decades only after they achieved comparable living standard.

                While that's quite possible, it's not the only time that such a recession can cripple China. The lesson of Japan is not that recessions can hurt, but rather that the response to recessions can cripple for decades.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2019, @10:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2019, @10:30PM (#783414)

    Love Canal was the government's fault; forcing a private company to sell them the land, then violating the proviso that they didn't build on it. And you might want to look in to how many of those Superfund sites are EPA labs...