Chinese Embassy Gets Briefly Suspended From Twitter; Insists 'Free Speech Must Be Honored' On Platform Banned Across China
from the want-to-try-that-again? dept
Content moderation at scale is impossible to do well. By now we've established that pretty firmly. However, there's something deeply amusing to see that when the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka was temporarily banned from Twitter over what Twitter later claimed was a "systematic mistake," that the embassy then chose to go on a little righteous rant about free speech needing to be honored.
The Embassy put out a press release more or less saying the same thing:
On 13th April, Twitter suspended the official account of the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka (@ChinaEmbSL), without informing any specific reason. The Embassy made solemn representation to Twitter twice, requesting the latter to clarify and correct their decision, to avoid any misunderstanding and random association in the public. In the early morning of 14th April, Twitter officially replied the Embassy for a "systematic mistake", apologized and unsuspended the Embassy's account.
The Embassy feels regretful to this "systematic mistake", and would like to reiterate that the "Freedom of Speech" must be honored, while not be misused to spread groundless, racial or hatred speech, nor be treated with "Double Standards".
At first I thought that the "regretful" feelings indicated an admission that the "systematic mistake" was on the part of the embassy, but it appears that the embassy means Twitter itself. As for the whole "freedom of speech must be honored bit," someone should remind the embassy that Twitter itself is banned throughout China.
However, if I'm reading this correctly, the Embassy is indicating to Twitter that if it merely makes "solemn representations" to the Chinese government, requesting that it "clarify and correct their decision to avoid any misunderstanding and random association in the public," why surely the Chinese government will end the ban on Twitter. Right?
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Filed Under: bans, china, embassy, free speech, social media, sri lanka
Companies: twitter
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Can we nominate the statement from the Chinese Embassy for a Funniest Comment of the Week award?
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It's almost like they don't understand how free speech works.
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Sure they do. All speech is free. It's just that some speech is more free than others.
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... hypocrite said what?
The Embassy feels regretful to this "systematic mistake", and would like to reiterate that the "Freedom of Speech" must be honored, while not be misused to spread groundless, racila or hatred speech, nor be treated with "Double Standards".
Double standards like, oh I dunno, throwing a fit that you got temporarily suspended on a platform banned in your home country? Objecting that your access was temporarily removed from a platform that isn't allowed to those in your home country?
Those kinds of 'double standards'?
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Can we nominate the statement from the Chinese Embassy for a Funniest Comment of the Week award?
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Sure they do. "You are free to say what we want you to say"
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So, China, hypocrite much?
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Or maybe one of their employees does, and will soon be fired for this post.
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Ah, but Mike, you're missing the important point here:
Twitter is banned in China due to spreading groundless, racila or hatred speech.
The embassy would be happy with being banned from Twitter if it were doing the same thing. What they're upset at is being banned without reason.
The problem, of course, being: what speech is considered groundless?
Followed by: what speech is considered racila?
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HOW many
of those from China, living and representing China around the World, LOVE they are not in CHINA??
Same reasoning that Many Muslims LEAVE those area's that have Groups enforcing, Obsolete ideals.
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Twitter probably needs to lock the account, seems pretty likely it's credentials have been compromised
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Simple solution: Ban their account for mind-blowing levels of irony in a single post. And because China.
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And then by: what the f&$k does “racila” mean?
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I assume it's a misspelling of "racial"
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Bah, it's my misspelling in transcribing the image of the press release they posted. Fixed.
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Ah. I thought it was a mistake, but I’d assumed it was in the original.
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Banned, blocked, whatever
Twitter itself is banned throughout China. Why?
Oh, riiiiight. The 2009 Urumqi religious riot that killed over 200 civilians and injured thousands more was coordinated through Facebook and, when the Government asked Facebook to cooperate with the Police, Facebook refused and has been blocked ever since.
The following year, on January 12, 2010 Google announced that it would no longer conform to China’s censorship laws, “We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.”
Twitter and Youtube, which took the same stance, were blocked.
P.S. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter removed accounts and content opposing the illegal assassination of Iranian General Suleimani.
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I second the motion.
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Re: Banned, blocked, whatever
Hmmm, I believe that's a 'strawman' you've got there (Facebooks' alleged bad behavior really doesn't logically lead directly to Twitter being blocked).
I also: I guess you believe that if people hear an idea they will be instantly brainwashed and believe it (or at least that applies to some significant portion of the population). If you don't believe that I can't imagine how you justify blaming a communications medium for other peoples (alleged) bad behavior.
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Hope the PRC got their 50 cents’ worth out of you.
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Isn't it more about that Social Credit Score or whatever the hell it is?
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I'm sure Godfree will be happy to explain why the Social Credit System is a good thing and not at all something from straight out of a dystopian novel.
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"It's almost like they don't understand how free speech works."
Of course they do. Speech which has been vetted by the relevant authority should be heard by everyone.
That way inaccuracies, falsehoods, and the occasional inconvenient fact about the leadership of the nation gets sorted out first. No one wants to hear about those things anyway.
The problem here is that Twitter lamentably suspended an account which WAS vetted by the relevant chinese authorities. No wonder they're pissed off.
/s ...in case someone missed it.
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Re: Banned, blocked, whatever
"Twitter itself is banned throughout China. Why?"
Because too many people on twitter are discussing the ethnic cleansing of the Uighurs going on in Xinjiang?
"...when the Government asked Facebook to cooperate with the Police, Facebook refused and has been blocked ever since. "
That FB refused to provide the personal information of a hundred million non-chinese citizens to chinese authorities without being given a damn good reason isn't something most westerners would object to. Facebook certainly has issues in many ways but that, dear astroturfer, wasn't good value for the 50 cents I assume you're being paid to put out the government-approved public message from Beijing.
Once again, since it appears we've gotten someone on this forum who actually sounds and acts like a bona fide 50-cent army astroturfer, I think you need to get your game out of the obvious old USSR-style boilerplate propaganda if you want to get anyone to read what you're being paid to write.
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"I'm sure Godfree will be happy to explain why the Social Credit System is a good thing and not at all something from straight out of a dystopian novel."
Of course he will. He already had himself a good old-fashioned one-sided wordwall argument as to why the chinese are just happy to have the media run and controlled by the state.
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Under any rational interpretation of the law, any new regulation at the same level as an old regulation that contradicts that old regulation should automatically supersede that old regulation. Only problem: Officers are not exactly known for doing the rational thing, and getting justice through the courts is either too costly or takes too long.
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... I think you meant to post this under the New York mask-anti-mask article.
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Given their posting history has simply been 'find article critical of china, post some blatantly obvious propaganda and then leave' I'm sure they will be happy to not do anything of the sort.
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Spoiler: They did not.
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They may have a point...
Ironic as it is, I think they may have a point here. Twitter regularly gives Trump a pass when he violates their terms; why shouldn't other governments get the same treatment?
Can you imagine what they'd be saying if Twitter banned Trump, even by accident? Surely they have a way of preventing that, and if they're gonna do that it's only fair they apply it to other government officials as well...
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"I'm sure they will be happy to not do anything of the sort."
Depends. Do we have a pending article on the chinese Social Credit System our good "Godfree" can put a comment to where he explains how having a government-approved rating on your worth as a human being is a great thing?
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Re: They may have a point...
Why should a government get a pass on a service they have banned in their country? If they want to complain about it the least they could do is allow that service to their citizens, otherwise it's just another case if the rules don't apply to the chosen few.
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I no longer know which group's the most hypocritical: the Tories or the Chinese government!
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Re: They may have a point...
Talking of Trump, I used to believe that his parents were Roman Catholics before I Googled them to find out. The guy is <i>such</i> a failed Withdrawal Method! :D
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Would I be able to get a car using my Social Rating score in China?
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We just have to make sure you get enough votes, and then they win by proxy!
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Re: Banned, blocked, whatever
Hi "Godfree",
Is there a reason you only seem to post blatant, laughably obvious Chinese party-line propaganda on Techdirt?
Thanks,
Mike
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Re: Re: Banned, blocked, whatever
"Is there a reason you only seem to post blatant, laughably obvious Chinese party-line propaganda on Techdirt?"
Pending "Godfree"''s answer - which will no doubt, in the mutual interest of intellectually honest debate, be swiftly forthcoming cough I can only posit the hypothesis that he built himself that account for the exclusive use on TD.
Now if I was a cynical and suspicious bastard I might expand that hypothesis and imply that TD's policy of being liberal with account creation proves to be low-hanging fruit for casually passing astroturfers.
Since I'm neither cynical nor overly suspicious in mindset I'll just posit that "Godfree" must have a perfectly logical explanation as to why he keeps posting classical USSR-style propaganda at a time when China desperately wants to remove the egg from their outside face.
(/s)
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"Would I be able to get a car using my Social Rating score in China?"
Depends. Has the local party hack had reason to consistently pump your social rating because of your devotion to Emperor Xi, or possibly because you haven't been such an unsocial cad as to fail to fill the pockets of said party hack with Yuan?
Then you can get a loan for that car and a driver's license.
Otherwise, you get nothing, and will be living in the slums while every honest citizen rightly shuns you for the unproductive parasite bereft of any social conscience that you are.
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Mission accomplished! 😁
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Twitter is not banned in China. Twitter is blocked to serve content in China because it refused to stop criminal terrorist activities organizing, recreuiting and celebrating terror attacks and murders in broad dailylight on Twitters platform, because Twitter got under presssure of the US regime financing these "moderate freedom" terrorists trough proxies like NED.
Now watch the NED drones shriek.
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Twitter is not banned in China. Twitter is blocked to serve content in China
So... Twitter is banned in China. Got it.
...because it refused to stop criminal terrorist activities organizing, recreuiting and celebrating terror attacks and murders in broad dailylight on Twitters platform...
How does one commit "murders in broad daylight on Twitters platform"?
Send back Godfree. At least his arguments made sense. Enjoy your 50 cents.
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