China Plays Innocent: It's Never Censored The Internet And Arrested Journos Have 'Legal Problems'
from the who-us? dept
For many, many years it's been well established by research reports and people who actually are in China, that the country censors an awful lot of the internet (often referred to as "The Great Firewall" of China). Recent reports have shown that there are tens of thousands of people employed by the Chinese government as part of the program to monitor the internet and internet usage, but that much of the "censorship" is done not by official government decree, but by making it clear that ISPs will get in trouble if they don't block certain sites. That makes it so the ISPs themselves choose what gets blocked, and they do so aggressively, as any failure can cause trouble with the government.Of course, by passing it off to the ISPs, rather than the government, it lets government officials stand up and make statements denying that there's any internet censorship at all. Instead, the official notes that sometimes people "have trouble accessing" certain sites, but that's "a different problem." When the surprised moderator at that session asked for clarification, the official said there's nothing to clarify since they don't have any restrictions. Of course, it's interesting that right before he says all this, it sounds like he's going down the typical path stated by Chinese officials in the past that the blocking is simply a way to "protect" users, since he says: "We need to also protect tourists in our country. And I have to say that I am a Chinese citizen, and I feel that I need to be protected. For example, we are threatened by terrorism. We do need protection." But then he immediately claims there's no restrictions. As for the issue of arresting journalists who the government is unhappy with, he again brushes that off, saying: "We have hundreds of journalists in China, and some of them have legal problems. It has nothing to do with freedom of expression." Right.
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Sounds familiar...
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Phew!
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pot kettle
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current affairs
I know this isn't the topic, but iraq says it needs 100 billion to help in repairs in the article above. I just thought it funny, because the government will probably help them with this. the us population just hit 300 million people. if you break it down, that means the gov. is spending $333.33 per person if they comply with this request......., and this is on top of what they already spent, and dosen't include that out of 300 million people, probably 50 million are too young to pay taxes
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Legalese
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bad
I hope the outside world would understand, the government doesn't represent us, we are much better than our government make us look like.
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Re: bad
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Re: bad
Only in a democracy can, to some extend, the government claim to represent the public (under the assumption of political freedom and fair representation)
And no, I'm not saying democracy is the answer. It has its own problems.
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Re: bad
Has China attacked Iraq, Afganistan,
caused war between Iran and Iraq
gone to vietnam and korea
Helped suppress Palestinians
Bullied lied extorted corrupted and manipulated
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bad part 2
I hope the outside world understands, our government doesnt represent us. In fact it purposely tries to divide us to maintain a certain level of campaign funding. Americans are much better then their government makes them look but often times Americans fail to do our duty as members of a democracy and our government has escaped our control.
Oh well its been about 200 years.. thats almost the same timing that rome switch between democracy and dictatorship. Maybe its our time.
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.it used to be they looked at China ..or the Soviet Union..but never at US..now they look at Iraq or Korea...but trust me, they don't look us in the eye..
And besides that, i'm not sure that anyone could tell which direction Pea-Eye Bush is looking anyway...
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Re:
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Re: Spect your President.
Well if the good guys are gone, at least we have the funny ones left.
Talking about china, Has anybody looked up "Tianenmen" on http://www.google.cn
I heard that we get pictures of "Tankman" and china doesn't.
I noticed that China does now, Some germans with "lemming.name".
Censorship is getting harder even for the Chinese.
Then again I wasn't in china when I did the search.
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Pogo
"Political language, and with variations this is true of all political parties, is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
George Orwell, 1946
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misanthropic humanist
The corollary of Pogo that avoids a schism for me is,
"Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself." Meehan
In other words, we know we are sick and sinful, but unable to stop hating ourselves for it. Most men take one of two choices, to embrace the sickness and become evil in life, or to turn the hatred outwards by projection. Very few have the courage to face themselves.
As for dear George spinning away in his grave, I think he was slightly autistic, with a propensity to dissect language far beyond practical semantics and meaning to ordinary folk, much like Chomsky. I would say language is always a liar, but then I'm a slightly autistic mathematician. Most of Science is an effort to add solidity to pure air (eg. quantum mechanics).
What sets political talk apart from other language is a deep and profound arrogant hypocracy that makes murder and abuse not just acceptable but heroic when performed on ones behalf, while evil and inhuman when directed against you. It is a complete lack of understanding of subjectivity and relativity.
In short the politician is somebody so utterly disconnected from empathic feelings that they actually do not grasp the paradox of their ideas. The word psychologists use for that is "psychopath".
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Just Like the Good Old Days
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So in the U.S.
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hi
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