June 4th: The Struggle Of Memory Against Forgetting
from the rewriting-history dept
Today is June 4th, a day pretty much like any other day in most parts of the world. But in China, June 4th has a unique significance because of the events that took place in Tiananmen Square on that day in 1989. This has led the Chinese authorities to introduce a range of increasingly repressive measures designed to minimize the ability of people to find out about what happened then, or to commemorate it, as the International Herald Tribune explains:
Today. Tonight. June 4. Big Yellow Duck.
Wait, Big Yellow Duck? The reason that term is blocked is the following image that has been circulating on Sina Weibo and Twitter:
Type any of these seemingly innocuous words and phrases, in Chinese, into Sina Weibo, the country's most popular microblog with more than 500 million registered users, and a message shows up that says: "According to relevant laws, statutes and policies," the results of the search "cannot be shown."
On Friday, a China Real Time search for "Tiananmen Incident" did not return the customary message from Sina informing the user that search results could not be displayed due to "relevant laws, regulations and policies." Instead the search returned results about a separate Tiananmen incident that occurred on Tomb Sweeping Day in 1976, when Beijing residents flooded the area to protest after they were prevented from mourning the recently deceased Premiere Zhou Enlai.That's obviously much more subtle than simply blocking these searches, which alerts people to the fact that something is being hidden. The new approach does not block, but filters, returning hits that refer to other, less problematic events. This not only stops people finding out about things like Tiananmen Square in 1989, it creates an alternative narrative that starts to erase the main one:
"They effectively make it look like people are talking about the issue, but there is nothing worthwhile being said," said the Greatfire.org spokesman, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the group's work.As the Wall Street Journal rightly concludes:
"If someone mentioned to you, 'There was an incident in Tiananmen many years ago,' you'd search it and think they were talking about 1976," he said.
The new function is likely to send a chill down the spines of the tens of thousands in Hong Kong and Taiwan who regularly gather to commemorate the massacre, for whom one common refrain comes from Milan Kundera: "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
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Filed Under: censorship, china, tiananmen square
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Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
And this after the prior item where I said that supplying falsehoods is worse than keeping people in ignorance. Point proven!
THIS IS TECHDIRT. Fraud and suppression of speech on an item about oppression. Doesn't get much stupider than this anywhere on the web.
If the rest of you fanboys had any decency, you'd defend me here in this clear case.
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Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
We did. We block and move on.
That obvious fake isn't even worthy of our time (at least certainly not of my time).
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Re: Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
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Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
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Re: Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
(No disrespect to all me bitches out there!)
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Re: Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
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Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
This should tell you how the community in general reacts to anything with your name on it.
Of course you could eliminate the impersonation issue by creating an account and fix the report issue by putting some thought into your posts.
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Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
So why bother complaining? Sounds like someone is doing your job for you.
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Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
They could call themselves out_of_the_green or something if they want to parody. That would be fine. But just copying a screenname and trying to impersonate someone is dishonest.
Dissenting voices are important. Otherwise you just get an echo chamber where everyone says the same thing, and there's no point in even HAVING comments. I disagree with you more often than I agree, but not always... and it's good to hear the other side sometimes.
Now, if I can relate this to the article... what the Chinese are doing is akin to deleting your actual posts and substituting fake ones. Stuff like this is why I can call the government of China evil. Both that they'd do something like Tienanmen Square, and that they'd block people from even discussing it.
This shows how easily the Internet can be manipulated when the government controls everything. Any site that people can find, the government can find and then shut down or filter out. Any search term that is trending can be manually filtered. Any technology that tries to bypass surveillance can be outlawed (and sure, you can make a seemingly innocent private way to communicate with your friend that the government may not be able to crack, but that's only going to work if you keep it private.)
And this is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm not even sure I want to say what they COULD be doing. I don't want to give them any ideas if they haven't thought of it already.
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Re: Re: And here's a FRAUD making false comments in my name!
I'm not sure what "clear case" you made, so I can't even tell whether or not it deserves defense.
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Just Like US
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/04/30/presidential-proclamation-loyalty-day-2013
Loyalty Day!!! Sounds rather Orwellian... don't you think.
I would ask Obama, loyalty to what? It surely is not to the constitution.
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Re: Just Like US
It celebrates loyalty to the party, of course.
Ah, I understand your confusion. Some documents have not yet been revised by the Ministry of Truth for historical accuracy. Don't worry, we'll update Wikipedia soon.
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"That's obviously much more subtle than simply blocking these searches,"
^^^ My valuable screen name is being copied again! Just as I wish, because shows the childish level of fanboys here, and the attempt to suppress speech.
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up same place!
http://techdirt.com/
If you like yapping ankle-biters, you'll love Techdirt!
06:55:24[h-026-6]
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Re: "That's obviously much more subtle than simply blocking these searches,"
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Re: "That's obviously much more subtle than simply blocking these searches,"
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Re: "That's obviously much more subtle than simply blocking these searches,"
They are doing it already. It's called search bubble. Look it up.
That's why smart people cross-reference information between several sources, and don't rely on a single source. I've been teaching friends and family to do so.
If you want to solve the problem, as opposed to just come in here and criticize everyone and anyone, you should do some activism and teach people to break free from the restrictions imposed on them by the power of monopolies.
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Re: "That's obviously much more subtle than simply blocking these searches,"
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Re: "That's obviously much more subtle than simply blocking these searches,"
Suppression of what speech????
I can read the other OOTB's comment and I can read your comment. That's twice the speech.
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Re: "That's obviously much more subtle than simply blocking these searches,"
The only value in your screen name is that it saves us the bother of reading your drivel before we report it.
Case in point, I KNOW you use Google all the time, so stop using it if you're so damn worried. Other search engines are available, you hypocrite.
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Winston Smith
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Clever... Very Clever
Why does the band System of a Down come to my mind?
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Revisionist History
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