
China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages - Sami_Lehtinen
https://globalvoices.org/2017/09/13/china-makes-chat-group-administrators-i-e-regular-users-criminally-liable-for-unlawful-messages/
======
brd
_The regulations also demand that all chat room users in mainland China verify
their real identity..._

 _Effective 8 October, the following types of content will be prohibited in
chat groups on China-based messaging platforms:

1\. Sensitive political content 2\. Rumors 3..._

Holy shit. What is this going to do to the Chinese tech scene? The liability
being created here is crazy to consider.

Lets all hope these practices aren't looked at as successful by other
governments, I'd hate to see other countries following suit.

~~~
scottLobster
I'm no expert on China, but this fits the pattern of them making extreme laws
(ie death penalty for corruption) and then selectively enforcing them. Laws
are tools for the party to use when it feels it might benefit, not universal
rules.

~~~
Retric
What's really interesting about this is how unstable it makes the country.
Clamp down and eventually you end up in a USSR situation where the government
suddenly disintegrates with little real warning because there is no feedback
loop to maintain stability.

Things seem ok because everyone ends up walking around pretending things are
good even the people enforcing the rules. Untill you get a little spark and
suddenly nobody is willing to stop it.

PS: I am not saying it's going to happen, but I expect the odds of complete
failure in the next 20 years are well over 5%. And if it does fail things
could get insanely ugly.

~~~
sushcount
Chinese government is panicking over its crashing economy, and it shows in its
actions. As of this year, it

\- banned soft cheese

\- banned all korean music and entertainment

\- (got rid of) Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Laureate, and prevented his wife from
leaving China

\- banned ICO

\- banned a bitcoin exchange

\- prevented its companies from investing overseas (Wanda, etc)

\- (rumored) prevented the richest person from leaving China

\- banned beards and veils in xinjiang

\- banned 'muhammad' and 'jihad' as baby names

\- banned entertainment news that promotes western lifestyles

etc

~~~
bnolsen
The xinjiang things are fully justified. Serious problems with terrorism,
random knifings, random needle injections, etc. Very bad stuff. As long as
china doesn't allow the han population to carry defensive weapons they have no
choice but to suppress the murderous muslims there. You want to go to a
restaurant or a store? Metal detector and xray machine for your bags. (My wife
is originally from there and she has relatives who live there now).

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Maybe there are legitimate grudges the "murderous muslims there" have which
are not addressed by the state? Like the right to political self-
determination.

------
protomyth
_A man from Jieshou county of Anhui province was frustrated by traffic police,
who had established a late night checkpoint for drunk driving. In a chat room
that he created, he wrote: “Are they nuts? Checking in the rain? [They are] a
bunch of assholes who just want money.” As the insulting comments created
negative social impact within his circle, the man was detained for five days
for picking a quarrel._

At this point, it would seem the cost of running a chat room would be a bit
too high if that's the punishment for "negative social impact" for the writer.
I would expect the owner to be just as on the hook.

------
EGreg
Makes me so happy to live in what is probably the country with the most
freedom of speech. The USA may be behind other countries in some things but
not freedom of speech!

If you live in a country with such draconian (and increasing) measures, there
is only one thing to do:

Use encryption. If only a few people use it, then they are targeted. If merely
10% of people use an encrypted protocol, it may be blocked. But if EVERYONE
uses it, it will be computationally infeasible to decrypt everyone's messages.
And banning eg TLS or SSH would be very hard to do.

In addition to this, DECENTRALIZE ALL THE THINGS. When there is no single
server, there is nothing to shut down. There is no central owner to
intimidate. People will have to go back to the bad old days of "tattle tales"
and KGB spies among the regular people.

And seriously, if democracy works at all in these countries, all lawful means
must be taken to defend what is left of freedom of speech. Who are these
people who are actually making these laws, anyway? Every time they break them,
it should be publicized.

~~~
quotemstr
> The USA may be behind other countries in some things but not freedom of
> speech!

And that's why it's important to fight those who would introduce Chinese-like
censorship to the west in the name of combating "hate speech" or whatever else
tickles the moral panic of the day. Efforts like Google's Conversation AI
seriously worry me: they have the potential to shape thought the same way that
the Chinese approach does.

In a sense, it doesn't really matter whether it's the government or a big
corporation that performs automated censorship. Either way, your life can be
adversely and drastically altered because some god damn neuron tripped over
its activation function and called you a monster.

~~~
christophilus
"In a sense, it doesn't really matter whether it's the government or a big
corporation that performs automated censorship."

It does matter. If it's a company doing this, you still are free to run your
own servers and say anything you want. If it's the government, you don't have
that freedom. You can be jailed, fined, executed, exiled...

~~~
quotemstr
> If it's a company doing this, you still are free to run your own servers and
> say anything you want

The Daily Stormer recently had a different experience. Besides, when your
entire life's infrastructure depends on an ecosystem of data services, being
suddenly disconnected from that ecosystem is tantamount to banishment. That's
definitely the kind of punishment that can discourage speech.

~~~
thegayngler
It really can. That's what it is supposed to do. However, some companies don't
wish to associate with certain speech. That's as much their right to free
speech as anyone else's right to free speech. You can create your own stuff
and no one is stopping them. From a government perspective you have free
speech. No business has to sponsor your speech if it offends them or hurts
their business.

------
Chiba-City
Their bottom up innovation will come to a screeching halt. They will export
more young utility focused entrepreneurs fed up and not wanting in to that
domineering state whacking their friends. We had a different colonial
trajectory, but our own McCarthy era had disastrous cascading outcomes.
"Rights to be forgotten" is another peculiar notion popular in some TV
propaganda driven Western countries loving makeovers. Keep on rocking in the
free world while it lasts.

~~~
smegel
Don't underestimate the nationalism of young Chinese.

And I very much doubt the CP is going to go after administrators who on-the-
whole moderate with a pro-Beijing slant because they took 5 minutes too many
to delete a comment.

Making assumptions that all young people hate the CP and would betray their
country to the west at first opportunity sounds like one of those classic
mistakes the West makes when it projects it's own sensibilities onto the
world.

~~~
prklmn
Most outsiders probably do not realize the impact of 24/7 propaganda in every
media channel there is. That's what OP is overlooking, and that's ultimately
what this action is ultimately about...

~~~
sametmax
Just like we underestimate our propaganda. When you are inside the soap
bubble, it's very hard to realize how much our brain have been washed.

------
notgood
There is fair amount of really smart people inside China (in tech scene and
otherwise) that probably want out [of the country] but don't know a clear path
for doing so, I think efforts should be made to that clear path; to work on
companies outside China [where they don't fear for their life if someone made
a anti-government comment on their site]. Due to censorship by the national
dictatorship such online effort must be done using randomly generated domains
(known by word of mouth), hard to censor texts (eg. text inside images that
use weird fonts; as intro inside pirated comics/movies/videogames, private
messages inside Alibaba and other platform that the Government won't shot
down)

~~~
toronson
There are also a fair amount of really smart people outside of China (in tech
scene and otherwise) that want in [to the country].

Almost half the people I've met are trying to go to China to start one thing
or another.

I would say over a quarter of my Chinese American friends have moved to China
to start a company, while an even larger portion fly back and forth quite
often.

------
omarforgotpwd
These laws are starting to appear now because for the first time AI and
machine learning are making censorship at this scale economically feasible.

~~~
roceasta
Yes, feasible, but what makes large-scale censorship so apparently desirable,
or at least so widely desired? The first obvious thought is that there are
repressive governments around the world who wish to keep power. And this is
true. But it can't be the whole explanation since plenty of relatively free
western democracies and businesses are enthusiastically embracing censorship,
laws about 'hate speech', and so on.

My guess is that a clue lies in the censorship going on much closer to home,
in our _own minds_. Thoughts which contradict our ideas about who we are and
what we should do are suppressed all the time. They fail to reach the light of
consciousness. In other words, like the individual mind, it seems the hive
mind must eventually develop an _ego._

~~~
MarkPNeyer
I have noticed that any pattern i see in the large world, I also find
reflected in my own mind.

When i've found myself unhappy about some aspect of the broader world beyond
my control, i've often been able to find the same pattern reflected in my own
mindset, locally.

Matrioshka dolls:

[http://markneyer.com/wp/?p=1078](http://markneyer.com/wp/?p=1078)

------
nickthemagicman
Jesus that's so repressive. And I'm sure the laws are pretty subjective as
well or at least not something the average chat admin is fully up to speed
with. Essentially the outcome of this will be to kill chats or send it
underground to tor or something.

~~~
marian0_
In Spain, you as a website admin can be found liable for unlawful messages
left by your users too. So it's not like this is unexpectedly repressive for
me.

A verdict that shows so:
[http://www.asesoriayempresas.es/jurisprudencia/JURIDICO/1959...](http://www.asesoriayempresas.es/jurisprudencia/JURIDICO/195962/sentencia-
ts-128-2013-sala-1-de-26-de-febrero-derecho-al-honor-comentarios-ofensivos-
insertos)

~~~
nawitus
Also true for Finland.

~~~
tobijkl
Also true for Germany.

~~~
Cyph0n
Also true for basically every Gulf country, but slightly more repressive.

------
sebastianconcpt
Comrades don't need to indoctinate when is way easier for them to just censor
by making illegal everything they don't like. Didn't Maduro in Venezuela told
its minions a month ago to prosecute twitter users who expressed dissent? He
even inspired them to put them 30 years in jail. What we are seeing here is
the instantiation of that strategy in internet messages. That doesn't mean
that it is not their normal for every other aspect in society. Remember this
the next time that The Economist, Time magazine or New York Times tries to
talk about "the wonders" of communism.

~~~
yarg
The Communist Party does not practice communism - it never has. They are no
more communists than the DPRK is democratic. Communism was co-opted very early
on and became just another form of authoritarianism.

~~~
mirimir
Yes, this can't be stressed or repeated enough!

The Soviet Communist Party was/is rather like Scientology. At the noob level,
in the Pioneers (a lot like US Boy Scouts) it was all about ideals/ideology
and honor. At some point, you realized that members got nice perks. More
money. Access to stores that carried better food and stuff. And eventually, as
you got into higher-level leadership, you started to get that it was all
bullshit.

~~~
oculusthrift
did you ever stop to wonder why every communist state ends up the same? is it
possible they misunderstand human motivations and psychology and will always
devolve to authoritarianism?

~~~
unabridged
Because so far every communist state has been created by violent
revolutionaries side stepping the democratic process. The type of people who
join a party that wants to shove the beliefs of 10% down the throats of the
90% are inherently authoritarian. Its no wonder they never become real
democracies once they have total power.

~~~
panic
I'm not sure this argument works -- many democratic states (including the US)
were also created by violent revolutionaries.

~~~
unabridged
The american colonies were not democratic, they needed a violent revolution to
create a democracy. There was no peaceful mechanism for them to take power.

Russia and China were already democracies before the authoritarian parties
took over. They could have peacefully taken control in elections if they were
able to convince the voters. But instead they disbanded the legislatures and
stopped having elections.

~~~
kbart
_" Russia and China were already democracies before the authoritarian parties
took over._"

Russia was not[0]. One of the key reasons that laid foundations for revolution
there was wide discontent of nobles and their arrogance towards common people.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsarist_autocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsarist_autocracy)

~~~
unabridged
The people overthrew the Tsar and had one free election:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Constituent_Assembly_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Constituent_Assembly_election,_1917)

The authoritarians (bolsheviks) didn't like the results (thought the people
weren't conscious enough yet to be trusted to be democratic) and disbanded the
democratic assembly. Instead they used their own assembly made of up
representatives indirectly elected via small local groups where they
controlled the voting by force. Which caused a civil war in which the
authoritarians won.

The authoritarians were just more organized and better at violence.

~~~
kbart
An interesting history fact I didn't know -- thank you. But I doubt one
election, which results were immediately negated anyway, is enough to call
Russia "a democracy". It looks like it was just a (failed) attempt of
bolsheviks to get an international legitimacy.

------
tushar-r
Ah yes. India has this law as well. I am part of a whatsapp group from my old
school. They decided to make all members administrators. Nice solution except
that the person who implemented it is the one who sends most of the crackpot
controversial messages. Planning to leave the group, especially since I dont
really interact on it.

------
thewhitetulip
India beat China in this. Since more than 1yr Whatsapp admins are responsible
for posts in their groups.

~~~
adrenalinelol
"beat"? Is there a competition to become the most Orwellian state before the
other?

~~~
swimfar
You're reading too much into how he phrased it. He just means that it happened
in India first.

------
ihateneckbeards
Be in western country

Join a large WeChat group

Offer to sell some drugs or talk about corruption of the party in the group

Basically send any group manager to prison... Just from your couch!

------
ttflee
Rule of law v.s. rule by law

------
mm4
and all it takes to be in this thought prison is to be unlucky to be pushed
out of your mothers vagina on that particular plot of land. even if you don't
want to have anything with the gov that essentially owns you...

~~~
studentik
Wouldn't it be possible to fix with educating mothers and fathers to choose
birth rate wisely?

------
vit05
And there was some news that Chinese would start trading crypto coins on
telegram and other chat messengers. I believe that will be really hard now,
too much risk.

------
zebraflask
How many people live in China? Most news from China on this subject make me
think of that Simpson's meme, you know the one: Old Man Yells at Cloud.

------
Mithaldu
I wonder what chat room means in this case. Does anyone in china use IRC?

~~~
Accacin
I'm guessing WeChat groups.

------
ringaroundthetx
expect some more WTFs over the next month, but then their congress will be all
cushioned in again and none of this will matter

------
evolighting
BUT，WE Chinese live a way far more free.

There are laws but we don't care, we live as we wish and we don't need other's
permission.

However when it come to a group, or a company, you are right, there are laws
just right for you.

~~~
cooper12
How typical on HN for a Chinese perspective to be downvoted to the bottom of
the thread while everyone else flagellates themselves for how "free" the USA
is.

