
China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February - b6
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/china-is-said-to-order-carriers-to-bar-personal-vpns-by-february
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7852b1805e
Is anyone here familiar with this situation in mainland China?

Will it effectively widen the cognitive gap between people living there and
the rest of the world? How many people in the country will take it to the
street to protest against this administrative policy?

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b6
Hi, this thread really croaked, but I thought I'd give some thoughts.

I think the term "mainland" is strange. To me it seems like marketing by the
CCP, because nobody else thinks China consists of a mainland part and some
other part. There's just China. Then there's another country, Taiwan.

If the VPN ban is effective, it won't affect most people. Most Chinese people
are not aware there is a Chinese internet and a real one. But it will affect
foreigners like me who live there because it's interesting. The internet is
sabotaged in many ways in China, but it's tolerable. But if the GFW actually
becomes extremely difficult to evade, living there will not be an option.
People seem to already be discussing an exodus, e.g., in /r/China.

I think it will also make China even more like North Korea. If you go to China
and talk to people, you'll find they have strange impressions about certain
internet topics, like they might think Google products are very bad and
unreliable. They think this because the GFW seems to have some sites in some
kind of degraded mode.

There won't be protests. If you protest in China, you get arrested and
subjected to trial by kangaroo court where "your" attorney is on the same team
as the judge and prosecutor. If you are a persistent thorn in the CCP's side,
you get disappeared and tortured. Maybe they return you to your family a few
years later and 30 kg lighter and thoroughly traumatized.

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7852b1805e
thanks for the detailed explanation...

