
Revisiting the West's view of China internet censorship - moflome
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-internet.html
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pochamago
I think they make a good point about how the laxness of China's intellectual
property laws is a boon to consumers, and maybe innovation.

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vokep
Why make anything if someone is going to just steal it?

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code_duck
Because them stealing it doesn’t entirely deprive you of it since it’s IP

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yumraj
Yes, it does. IP has value.

You create IP to generate value from it. When someone steals IP you lose value
that you should have derived from it.

Theft is theft, whether of IP or otherwise. And a thief is a thief, whether of
tangible product or IP.

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throwaway4799
You're literally wrong. Intellectual property can't be stolen by definition.
You're probably referring to _copyright infringement_ which is a completely
different thing from theft, whose application is completely different from
country to country and is not sentenced the same way.

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devy
Eric Shcmidt made some bold forecast echoing some of this sentiment in a
September private VC event.[1]

[1]: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google-
ceo-p...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google-ceo-predicts-
internet-split-china.html)

~~~
StudentStuff
There are two distinct internets already, getting bandwidth to move data in
and out of China is an expensive proposition, combined with the Great Firewall
makes it such that domestic companies have significant advantages compared to
overseas competitors.

Those domestic companies seem to be starting to innovate on their own, though
there is quite a bit of back and forth between US researchers and their
counterparts in China. Whether or not this will translate to commercial
success outside the protective walled garden is questionable, thus far we
haven't seen Baidu or others break into major markets outside China and keep
its apps, websites, etc popular for more than brief blips.

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bilbo0s
> _Whether or not this will translate to commercial success outside the
> protective walled garden is questionable..._

Is that something the party cares about? (The Communist Party I mean).

Serious question.

How interested are they in having Americans or Bolivians or whatever engage in
the daily use of Chinese internet sites and apps? My sense is that they don't
really care about that. It seems that it's more a priority that we, on our
part, _assume_ the party has. I honestly wonder if they care?

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woolvalley
Well if you want to make money from those other people, or have easier access
to whats happening in the world globally, yes.

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bilbo0s
> _Well if you want to make money from those other people, or have easier
> access to whats happening in the world globally..._

Here's the thing though, those people can buy tires or pants made in China,
_WITHOUT_ using Chinese websites.

I seriously don't think they care if we use Baidu or not. In fact, I wouldn't
be surprised if the party would _PREFER_ that we _NOT_ use Baidu.

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eiaoa
> I seriously don't think they care if we use Baidu or not. In fact, I
> wouldn't be surprised if the party would PREFER that we NOT use Baidu.

If the world used Baidu, it would be a propaganda coup for the CCP. They'd
have the ability to disappear information they want to suppress (like
criticism of the camps in Xinjiang), and freely push propaganda and
disinformation (a la
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infektion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infektion)).

Think about it: if the web existing in the 1980s and the Soviets controlled
the world's main search engine, the top results for "AIDS" would be
disinformation articles about how the US government created it.

So, I'm sure the CCP would like the world to use Baidu, but it might not be
high on their list of priorities to push right now.

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StudentStuff
> if the web existing in the 1980s and the Soviets controlled the world's main
> search engine, the top results for "AIDS" would be disinformation articles
> about how the US government created it.

Soviets tended to play up the bad points in their propaganda, so it would
likely be pushing images and videos of people suffering with AIDS, captioned
with "American pigs aren't researching or treating this mass epidemic ripping
through their capitalist stronghold".

The sad part is such propaganda would be fairly accurate, for most of the
1970s and 1980s our government stood by and let people die of AIDS, not
funding research or pushing safe sex education, feeding the epidemic.

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eiaoa
> Soviets tended to play up the bad points in their propaganda, so it would
> likely be pushing images and videos of people suffering with AIDS

Soviets tended to play up the bad points in their propaganda, so it would
likely be pushing images and videos of people suffering with AIDS, captioned
with "American pigs aren't researching or treating this mass epidemic ripping
through their capitalist stronghold".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infektion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infektion)

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moflome
Non paywall version here [0], I have to think some Western governments are
looking again at China's internet policies for inspiration. Tim Cook, for one,
seems [1] to be encouraging it.

[0]: [https://outline.com/8LNkuq](https://outline.com/8LNkuq) [1]:
[https://www.siliconrepublic.com/companies/apple-tim-cook-
tec...](https://www.siliconrepublic.com/companies/apple-tim-cook-tech-
regulation)

~~~
wmf
China's internet policies are an inspiration for GDPR-style privacy
regulation? I don't understand.

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StudentStuff
No, many neoliberals & center right supporting people like Tim Cook have taken
to this idea that we should censor certain views after the defeat of Hillary.

Its a weak argument responding to the expression of the dropping standard of
living for the poorest among us here in America, and it was a massive
blindspot that Hillary's data science team didn't pick up on:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/9sy7g1/di_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/9sy7g1/di_work_under_a_famous_researcher_in_a_big/e8slexw)

Edit: People of Tim Cook's beliefs, eg: the Gay Log Cabin Republicans mostly
died out during the AIDS crisis. A very similar strain of political ideology
was heralded by Hillary in this past electoral cycle. Basically a "Fuck you,
got mine. Don't you have magical bootstraps? Oh, here is a tiny, useless
smidgen of help".

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joefranklinsrs
NYTimes is going overdrive cranking out favorable coverage on China the past
couple of days. Perhaps NYTimes editors got some reminder from Wall Street
that China again needs to be _sold_ to the American public. Since Wall Street
dismantled the American workers 30 years ago with NAFTA and China/WTO, it
probably felt like it can do it again with the incoming $250B tariff on
Chinese imports.

Problem is, US is winning, big - China Is Paying for Most of Trump's Trade
War, Research Says. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-19/china-
is-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-19/china-is-paying-
for-most-of-trump-s-trade-war-research-says)

