
Great Firewall rising: How China wages its war on the Internet - JayXon
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/25/asia/china-war-internet-great-firewall/
======
pmlnr
Says the BBC, from a country that silently introduced a country-wide firewall
of it's own for protecting people from porn, extremists and pedophiles.

[https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/censorship](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/censorship)

"Whoever is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at
her."

I know there are issues in China, but maybe fix our own problems first.

P.S.: I've been to China, and I've seen people using tech even in remote
places with a much higher causality for solving language barriers for example,
compared to Western nations. Also, they don't give a bit about copyright
ideas, so no, internet censorship is definitely not killing innovation there.
Slowing it down a littlebit, maybe, but not killing it.

~~~
studentrob
There's a pretty big difference between blocking porn and blocking popular
services used for communication by much of the rest of the world.

I don't see a problem with one journalist or media outlet criticizing another
country's policies. Given free access to information, people should be able to
decide for themselves.

The question is, when will Chinese citizens earn the right to openly criticize
their government without fear of being locked up?

~~~
pmlnr
"blocking popular services used for communication by much of the rest of the
world"

Uhm... Google and Facebook shares more or less the same userbase and that in
numbers ( I mean real users, real people ) is comparable to the people in
China alone, so 'popular services used for communication by much of the rest
of the world' might be a bit of an overstatement.

(We also might just all be much happier without Facebook and less locked-in
without Google but that's a private opinion.)

Github is indeed an issue, that really should not be blocked.

EDIT

As for criticizing the government... the Chinese government had made truly
significant changes starting from the 90s. It's a slow progress, yes, and they
do sacrifice certain rights of free speech in order to prevent chaos and wars.
I believe this change is slowly on it's way, but this takes a really, really
long time.

Let me tell a small story here. The company I work for is trying to establish
some business in China but so far, they've failed. One of the reasons is that
people there doesn't seem to trust reviews online, if it's from unknown
origin. Known origin is someone they actually know, and they do trust the word
and recommendation of those. This is exactly the environment I was raised in,
in Eastern Europe - you don't trust what you don't know.

Believe it or not, this is a certain kind of criticism; questioning everything
coming from the authorities. Yes, it is very different from the usual Western
approach, and requires a different mindset; a mindset that is trying to avoid
conflict and make the best out of the situation without upsetting anyone.

Criticism can happen on various levels, from drawing instigating pictures to a
gentle smile, and I would not underestimate the power of the latter either.

~~~
studentrob
I disagree. Granting free speech does not mean war. It means a better economy.
China's economy is plateauing. It will not get a major boost from, for
example, buying US patents en masse. China needs more homemade innovation. As
you say, they will get the best innovation from people they trust. They can
get even more of that from people who feel free to think, communicate and
express themselves. It's currently easier to do all that outside China than it
is within. Therefore the brightest leave and other countries benefit from
China's cream of the crop.

There are plenty of examples of other Asian countries which have the same
trust issues you mention and also have free speech. They have not descended
into war. Their economies have improved. Are there disputes that play out on
TV and in newspapers? Yes. Are people embarrassed? Yes. Is it the end of the
world? No.

------
zachb
This is the same China whose central government, officially an atheist state,
claims authority on deciding who the next Dalai Lama will be reincarnated as -
[http://time.com/3743742/dalai-lama-china-reincarnation-
tibet...](http://time.com/3743742/dalai-lama-china-reincarnation-tibet-
buddhism/)

I'd love to hear perspective on this matter from people closer to the source.

~~~
est
This is simple, Dalai Lama by definition, since the beginning of all Dalai
Lamas, is appointed by a central government.

Fun fact: The Tibetan monk system is a grand scheme to reduce minority people
fertility so ethics population is not a threat to central empire. Search for
黄教 减丁 if you are interested.

~~~
kephra
So we have two of them: one "appointed" by US, and one by China. For further
enlightenment, meditate about the half zero ༳ in Tibetan unicode.

------
kercker
Most of my friends here in China just do good without the open internet. Like
the article says, for every major blocked application or website, there is a
home-grown substitute. People can get the information or the service they need
from these substitutes.

I personally find that that the Chinese version of Wikipedia is blocked is
annoying.

If the Great Firewall must exist, I'd like it to be more advanced. This way,
it can block in a finer granularity. Instead of blocking a whole website, it
can block an individual webpage that annoys it.

~~~
sharetea
So where does your friend go to get information about

1.) a list of corrupt officials and what activities they're involved in

2.) the richest 70 members of China’s NPC have a larger combined wealth
($89.8bn in 2011) than that of all 535 members of the US congress?

3.) Tiananmen square

4.) Great Famine

5.) China is insolvent?

?

~~~
kercker
People in my village get corrupt information from watching TV, browsing the
web, and most importantly from chatting with others, from rumors. They talked
about rumors about 100+ billion yuan involved in Zhou Yongkang's corruption.
They talked the affairs between previous President Jiang Zemin and singer Song
Zuying. They talked about the former propaganda head Li Changchun directed the
murder of a policewoman. You see, we can get many knowlege from chattng with
each other.

From the daily newspapers,we can get the impression that people in NPC are
super riches. But members of NPC are puppet, we don't care that much of their
wealth than the wealth of the officials of real powers.

People also get information from blogs and BBS.

Our grandparents went through the great famine, the cultural revolution. If we
are curious, they have many stories to tell us. I get many information about
that period from grandpa.

------
jruthers
Honest question: what is it that Chinese officials fear would happen, if they
let their citizens have free access to the internet?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
In the west, the thing we value (or should value) above everything else is
freedom of political speech and freedom to assemble into political groups.
These things allow a country to adapt over time by changing who is in power.

For that reason, the Chinese cannot have those things. The whole point is that
the same people must stay in power. So you can chat online all you want about
hobbies or celebrities, but nothing about how the system is broken. And forget
assembling in small groups in an effort to change things.

The issue here is feedback loops. In the west, closely-knit political groups
can "own" the government for periods of time. Once they screw up -- and they
all do -- the voters can have new groups come peacefully into power. There's a
way to be wrong. The Chinese have a feedback system where change happens
inside the party, but it's much more creaky and brittle. Open net access would
expose all of that by getting people talking and comparing political systems.

~~~
fisheuler
Our Chinese history is full of loops driven by the rise and fall of
dynasty,this model hasn't changed for thousands of years.I don't think our
party have the will and courage to break this cursed loops. SO PITY.

------
eccstartup
1\. Activists and developers are two totally different group of people. CNN is
totally wrong in this point.

2\. Facebook vs Renren NOT Facebook vs Wechat. Wechat is shit!

3\. Most evidences are true.

------
rahimnathwani
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101469)

------
seanmcdirmid
Is CNN trying to get itself blocked too? They are like the last one (besides
Fox News) that aren't.

~~~
hugh4
I'm gonna guess that this article isn't accessible from inside China.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It most definitely is accessible. I'm not running a VPN.

------
70seconds
Trust me CNN, it is hardly different from how we wage a war on the Internet
(CISA, CISPA, TPP and what not). Do you not use that ton of cruft on your site
with similar designs?

~~~
venomsnake
It is different - US is chasing monetarily goals mostly and NSA want to read
everything. Chinese are trying to prevent thought crimes and political
discourse.

Although there are few isolated cases where DMCA was abused to stifle
discourse, they are far and between.

~~~
70seconds
> "Want to read everything"?

How is NSA wanting to read everything (if they don't already) any different
from Chinese authorities reading everything?

Different my foot.

Looking at the quality of discussion here it seems we're living in that
dumbfuck's paradise. For they say: when you are dead, you do not know you are
dead. It's only painful and difficult for others. The same applies when you
are stupid.

There is little difference in intent, monetary pursuit, lust of power, size of
investment and scale of techniques used by either centre of powers. For
_exactly_ the same purpose.

~~~
rsanders
The Chinese authorities are preventing their citizens from reading things they
find counter to their aims. You don't have to create this false equivalence to
find both actions undesirable.

