
Learning China’s Forbidden History, So They Can Censor It - gok
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/business/china-internet-censor.html
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seanmcdirmid
> It’s easy to make mistakes. One article about Peng Liyuan, China’s first
> lady, mistakenly used the photo of a famous singer rumored to be linked to
> another leader. It was caught by someone else before it went out, Mr. Yang
> said.

I’m betting this is the lameizi (spicy girl) singer Song Zuying who was
rumored to be Jiang’s mistress. She is in the process of being purged as Xi is
doing to many of Jiang’s supporters ATM. Xi’s wife is also a patriotic song
singer from the same era, it makes sense young people might get confused.

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dwd
Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth was basically this.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Which came from George Orwell working at the British Ministry of Information.

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EthanHeilman
That's interesting I didn't know Orwell had a connection to the British
Ministry of Information. Wikipedia seems to suggest that he didn't work there
but his wife did:

>"At the outbreak of the Second World War, Orwell's wife Eileen started
working in the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information in central
London, staying during the week with her family in Greenwich. Orwell also
submitted his name to the Central Register for war work, but nothing
transpired." \-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Second_World_War...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Second_World_War_and_Animal_Farm)

Wikipedia could be wrong though since any work he did for the Ministry might
not have been public until recently.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Ah, my bad, I misremembered somewhat.

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EthanHeilman
I'm glad you brought it up. It adds quite a bit of context to 1984.

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yorwba
> When asked whether he had shared with family and friends what he learned at
> work, such as the Tiananmen crackdown, Mr. Li vehemently said no.

> “This information is not for people outside to know,” he said. “Once many
> people know about it, it could generate rumors.”

That seems to imply that the censors are told that the events are basically
true. I'd expected them to be taught as rumors in the first place, which they
have to learn to recognize as a secret code used by enemies of the state.
Humans are pretty good at ignoring cognitive dissonance, but I wonder how
often someone ends up spreading the "rumors" even further by simply talking
about what they do at work.

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paraditedc
As a Chinese national, somehow this article does not come across as _negative_
to me. Weird.

~~~
benrbray
Like the other poster, I'm curious to hear your perspective. You don't find it
a bit strange that "only government-owned websites and specially approved
political blogs...are allowed to post photos of top leaders."?

You also think it's better to cover up events like Tiananmen Square? It seems
like it's almost entirely forgotten even though it happened only 30 years ago.
My country (US) doesn't have a great human rights track record either, but at
least we're allowed to talk about it.

~~~
wybiral
> My country (US) doesn't have a great human rights track record either, but
> at least we're allowed to talk about it.

Exactly. No country has a perfect history but by confronting past mistakes you
have a chance to learn from them and hopefully support laws or norms that
prevent them from happening again.

Perhaps this only applies in countries that practice democracy, where the
people's awareness has a chance of translating into representation. Otherwise
it's only likely to create discontent with the inability to change things (and
thus unrest).

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scottlocklin
This perspective always cracks me up. The way the US does it is less brutal
and obvious, but pretty much the same thing; old books are scrapped and
forgotten. Formerly popular thinkers are memory holed or declared 'thought
criminals' (pick your '-ist'). Their books are no longer taught in college,
and the perspectives they represent are gone forever.

Present day thinkers and reporters are given the same silent treatment on
mainstream media which is obviously controlled by the narrow oligarchy which
controls everything else. Same treatment is happening on youtube as China is
doing; non-conforming perspectives are actively sought out and removed by
censorious apparatchiks. Oh yeah, and now they're also sometimes denounced as
"russian agents" as well -a pack of absurd, paranoid and Orwellian nonsense
which makes anything the ChiComs say look like objective common sense.

The US engages in ritual denunciation of itself for slavery and killing off
the Indians. Somehow our most excellent international adventures, ridiculous
military provocations, poisoning of the food chain, extractive slave economics
of the native population and colonial control of half the population of the
world is A-OK. For all I know, China engages in ritual denunciation of its
pre-Maoist self as well. That doesn't mean they're not carefully controlling
the narrative now.

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quxbar
My college education was pretty honest about the atrocities of the USA. I get
to openly post about politics all day on facebook without any fear of
reprisal. Pretty different from a country with a whole dictionary of secret
codewords used to discuss politics and history. There is no 'both sides',
there's just your self-pity - the people you call censorious apparatchiks are
just people who don't respect your opinion. You mistake being unpopular for
being persecuted, which is common for privileged engineering types like us.

~~~
xfs
The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of
contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an
environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political
will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as
something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds,
free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech
still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship
as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that
jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech
powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade. -Julian Assange

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benrbray
Can you say anything to back up the claim that "speech still has power" in
China? That seems to go against what the pro-censorship commenters are saying,
which is that most people in China know all the bad stuff anyway and just
don't care. If that's true, it seems like words have lost all power.

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woodandsteel
China's leaders tell the world that their citizens are all united behind the
government, except for a few traitors. But the government acts like the
population is so weak in its support that it could be easily provoked to
revolt by exposure to uncomfortable truths.

