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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Unpublished Chinese Censorship Document Reveals Effort to Eradicate Online Political Content (2018)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)
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Tuesday January 08 2019, @12:11AM (1 child)
THIS
I have been involved in manufacturing in China, the thing that Americans don't necessarily understand at first is that they view QA as 100% your responsibility, almost as if they are mandated to cut every corner that they can. Of course this cuts both ways, if you lock your spec and QA down super tight you will find that you don't get your pricing where you need it anymore, and deadlines start slipping. There is a temptation to say they have no pride in their work or they make shoddy products, but it really is more nuanced than that. Fantastic products are made in China, and you can have a device made by the likes of Foxconn very economically, but if you expect Apple build quality just because it is the same OEM, you are in for a ride.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 08 2019, @10:11AM
Nb: This is my experience everywhere - not just china. If you don't test it, it doesn't work (I am mostly a software guy).