China Again Denies Internet Censorship In Carefully Worded Rebuttal
from the tip-toeing-carefully-around-the-definitions dept
A week ago, people were surprised to see how a Chinese government official publicly stated that the country does not censor the internet, in spite of plenty of evidence to the contrary. It looks like this is becoming the official Chinese government line on the topic. Following the announcement from Reporters Without Borders that China was one of the "enemies of the internet" due to censorship, the Chinese government is again protesting the claim that they censor the internet. However, if you read the response, you can see that it's very carefully worded to tip toe around the definition of censorship. The official stated: "As in other countries, the Internet is managed according to international standards, the law, and the self-management of Internet service providers." It's that last part where the trickiness is involved. China's censorship policy has recently been focused on making it clear to ISPs that they need to censor access to "undesirable" content online. This lets the government claim that they don't do any censorship at all -- and that it's simply "self-management" by ISPs in accordance with what makes sense. It's a sneaky way of getting around the issue, but it's not clear who they think they're fooling with these claims. Perhaps just themselves.
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I Guess
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Re: "I guess"
In essence it means ISP will be more or less aggressive with censoring but will avoid at all costs getting shut down by the government for "subversive attitudes" or "not protecting the population from undesired outside corruption"
And once shut down it may take years before you are allowed to operate again...Chinese officials tend to take a long term view on punishing by revoking licenses.
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I Guess re: I Guess
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Eh
China's making one of those statements that someone makes when everyone knows they're losing an argument. Pulls out technicalities that everyone sees right though.
Not to be negative, but if the Chinese did have access to the full unadulterated internet, the U.S. might see a price increase on many products if the common factory works learn such terms as "labor rights" and "minimum wage".
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internet in china
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The problem is...
I know I live in a country mostly run by crooks (well they call themselves politicians) but damn.
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