> “I personally am not sure what the solution is for these companies,” said Mr. Rosenzweig. “I don’t see a good answer because the Chinese government is really putting them between a rock and a hard place.”
I don't think this is that hard of a decision, is it? Just say no and cut ties with efforts for China as a market. Any profits there are not worth jeopardizing all of the privacy and precedents that are being slowly pushed.
I think it's too late. Bill Clinton sold them enough tech in the 90s in exchange for defense contractor kickbacks
that now China has passed the US in military technology. China has too much influence and money on too many US campuses and has students demanding repeal of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendments, which will help continue the growth of Chinese power. Xi Jinping is explicit in his goal to bring democracy to an end globally, and he now has indirect control of Hollywood to complete this agenda. The big internet controlling companies act like private versions of the Chinese government, and will increasingly be instruments of the Xi Jinping or else be destroyed by richer Chinese competitors. I hope I'm wrong about the boot being already planted on the face of humanity forever.
I have been befuddled by the behavior of young people on these axis for the last 10 years. This observation you’ve made is super seductive... but I think the more likely reason we are in this mess is that the younger gens are foundationally devoid of skepticism.
I applaud your creativity though. It definitely could be a contributing factor.
The grandparent is probably just mocking satire. I don't think any American, not even the most cartoonish millennial activists, wants to repeal the 4th amendment.
The gun debate over the last few weeks makes me think otherwise.
Edit: I don't think they want to repeal it. I think they want to ignore it. In fact- I don't think anyone actually wants to go through the hassle of repeal for any of the previously mentioned amendments, which would be the right approach. They just want some magical executive order that usurps the constitution.
Well, unless the unreasonable seizures are being committed against "privileged" groups to guarantee equality of outcome (as opposed to equality of opportunity).
I knew lots of Chinese students in college. And I can tell you with quite a bit of certainty that most were far too busy studying to go out and organize or participate in political protest.
> now China has passed the US in military technology
China hasn't come close to passing the US in military technology in fact.
Technologically they're behind the US in: destroyers, submarines, helicopters, drones, laser weapons, satellites, integrated command systems, aircraft carriers, ICBMs and general nuclear weapon technology, tanks, bombers, jet fighters. In several of these categories, China is extremely far behind.
The Germans, French, British and Russians also have countless military gear that is still technologically well ahead of China. Overall, Russia's military technology capabilities are well ahead of China. China still struggles with primitives like jet engines, which Russia has long since mastered.
China still can't field a single long range aircraft carrier. Currently they're unable to push their military projection much beyond Japan and limited parts of the Indian Ocean. The US has true global force projection to practically every corner of the globe. Will China catch up? Plausibly; it'll take 30 years for them to build all the bases necessary to do it.
Not just profits. Also influence. Each company wanted to spread it's products globally. Google tried this. But government kept blocking them causing slow internet. The miserable experience plus targeted hacking destroyed their morale for staying in.
Interestingly for Google, it didn't add up to much in terms of missing out. Much like Russia and Yandex, the odds were slim that Google was going to beat out Baidu on their own turf for various reasons. In the case of Baidu, they ended up being a non-threat outside of China. As China gets a lot more aggressive on censorship and content control in the coming years, Baidu's chances of truly going global will dwindle to zero. Lately Baidu has been looking at search as their past, because they know they've lost and hit a wall there in terms of any global search ambition, so they're burning their resources on trying to play in other categories vs Alibaba and Tencent.
Meanwhile since Google was pushed out of China, they have become a near trillion dollar juggernaut. Since fiscal 2009, Google has grown from $23b to $109b in sales. They're about nine to ten times the size of Baidu and growing as fast. That's the cost of being stuck inside of China, while Google is stuck outside of China.
Australia is deeply involved in this. China are actively trying to control conversation with Chinese students and immigrants here. The govt has literally bought all Chinese language press and semi regularly run full page 'articles' in the major press. They have been caught out several time pressuring universities and placing disruptive people in lectures that discuss areas they don't want. I believed agents recently were found to have broken into lectures houses.
Its a delicate situation and hopefully the government will not be afraid to deal with it, whilst not turning it into a xenophobic support point.
The Canadian federal government seems to have been compromised as well, there is significant amounts of serious financial and drug crimes occurring in Canada that is very clearly disproportionately (to put it nicely) associated with immigrants from mainland China, newspapers are regularly reporting on it, there are anecdotal stories all over the place, but there's no "evidence" because law enforcement will not touch them, and the Canada Revenue Agency will not audit them. It is obvious something very unusual is going on behind the scenes.
I'd love to know what sorts of things are going on in Africa.
It's nice to see the mainstream finally starting to wake up from their long slumber though, perhaps there's hope yet.
Why would the Canadian govt. give special treatment to Chinese people? I think there's just not clear evidence. Look at the endless talk of Chinese people running up the prices of homes in Vancouver, that gets tons of attention, but it's generally legal. The crimes you suggest are much different than that.
Money laundering and immigration fraud are absolutely not legal, but they are absolutely not punished in Canada when committed by mainland Chinese. That is a fact, not an opinion.
When you say Australia is involved in this, do you mean the Australian govt is involved or just that China is doing this on Australian soil?
I don't understand from your comment whether you're referring to the Australian govt or the Chinese government as having bought all the press. And who "they" are when referring to disrupting lectures.
This is rather biased against China. OK, so Chinese authorities have arrested citizens who have posted "illegal" material. I don't see that they've grabbed citizens of other countries off the streets, which the US and Israel have done. Or pressed other countries to extradite their citizens based on criminal allegations, which the US commonly does.
And about takedown requests to Google etc. MPAA and other "rights holders" do this frequently. Indeed, the US government uses DNS poisoning to censor sites that it considers illegal. Or requests that other countries raid hosting services, and impound servers. Has China done that?
Anyway, just sayin'. I do believe that everything should be takedown-proof, for what it's worth.
Yes, I see that he was kidnapped from Thailand in 2015, and was just arrested again, this time in China.[0] And in 2015, four other Causeway Bay Books staff were arrested, in Hong Kong and mainland China. So I stand corrected.
Well, I consider that I do, as fair non-commercial use. Also to buy and sell drugs without getting hassled. But anyway, I'm not saying that I approve of what China does.
Facebook suspended Mr. Guo’s account. In a statement, the company said the account published the personal information of others without their consent, which violated the platform’s policies.
Zuckerberg wants to be in China in such a bad way. He's learned Mandarin, plays up his family connections (via his wife's family), and puts on the charm when visiting China. He's created relationships with officials at every level. His representatives have talked with companies which may be partners or acquired at some point.
It does not surprise me one bit that Facebook will bend over backwards to accommodate officials on censorship demands. This is the cost of doing business in China for a tech company. Media companies learned this decades ago - read up on how Rupert Murdoch was able to operate there, it's quite fascinating.
Now it's Silicon Valley's turn, especially companies that specialize in communication -- social networks, phone manufacturers, companies that sell networking hardware, etc. The Chinese government's survival depends on information control, and if they can't do it themselves, then they force local and foreign companies to do it for them.
Don't think that this issue will be limited to human rights activists. It doesn't matter who you are -- your social media comments, family relationships, WeChat and Facebook messages, work connections on LinkedIn, and other digital footprints that reflect your attitude or influence will be used to build a social media score that determines your level of access to the country and ability to do business in China.
The scary prospect is that other countries will do the same thing ... if they haven't done so already.
I suppose corrupt dealings are personal details, so exposing corrupt dealings (in a credible way, with details) is likely to involve publishing the personal information of others.
The way Zuckerberg has gone about it, I think he is awkwardly a sinophile, he isn't doing those things just to (or even primarily to) get Facebook into China.
Do you mean an Sinophile or do you mean he has a Chinese fetish. They are different things. One may be benign, where the other may mean there could be an issue.
> A Sinophile or a Chinophile is a person who demonstrates a strong interest and love for Chinese culture or its people.[1] It is also commonly used to describe those knowledgeable of Chinese history and culture (such as scholars and students), non-native Chinese language speakers, pro-Chinese politicians, and people perceived as having a strong interest in any of the above.
That the combining form -phile is also used for perverted things doesn't negate its rather benign meaning.
Sorry, yes, I know the diff. I mean, I know Francophiles and Anglophiles [and obvs. Sinophiles]. And I meant fetish not in the sexual fetish context, but fetish as in fetishizing something. Do they mean Zuck fetishizes China [as in ethnic fetishism [1]]or that he simply "likes" China, but does not fetishize it.
Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. It is really hard to judge someone's interest in other culture. It could start out as a fetish and evolve into something more balanced as you begin to learn what really is. I've seen many foreigners in China go through this. Since Zuckerberg can't just take a few years off and live in a hutong, I don't know see that happening.
In any case, I don't think it matters. China and Chinese is like a hobby for Zuckerberg that he is interested in. I don't think getting Facebook into China is a huge concern at all for him, he's just using his position to do what he wants.
There's no real difference between "likes X" and "fetishizes X" except in the minds of people who think liking X too much or in a manner they don't approve is bad.
Ya, isn't it obvious? The guy is definitely awkward. I think Chinese like to think he is doing it for the money, because they feel like it gives them face and they can't imagine anything else being possible. Americans look at it quite differently of course, they see some guy who obviously has a thing for China and is doing a bunch of cringey stuff because of that.
If he was doing that for the money, you'd think he would consult first with someone who actually knew better.
>That is of course the only possibility Chinese can think of, while Americans just think he is being awkward.
Well, I'm not Chinese, and I think those who think he's being awkward are naive.
>Not do a bunch of cringe worthy stuff like asking Xi to name his child or jogging in Beijing smog.
Cringe-worthy to whom? Because the Chinese audience will probably eat-up that kind of soapy stuff, the same way Americans cherish the cliche stuff performed by people coming into the US and seeking their business (businesses, actors, etc).
>> China leaned heavily on major internet companies when Guo Wengui, a Chinese tycoon in self-imposed exile, went on Facebook and YouTube to accuse a number of Chinese officials of corruption...
> Facebook suspended Mr. Guo’s account. In a statement, the company said the account published the personal information of others without their consent, which violated the platform’s policies.
One way to test the truthfulness of Facebook's claim is to see whether or not they suspend the accounts of users who make corruption claims about US officials. Surely there were a lot of such claims involving personal information about politicians during the last election cycle. Did Facebook suspend those accounts?
Whilst I think there's some merit in the recent increase in China articles here. The tone of this one seems sensational. What I find most intriguing about discovering China is what it says about me and the so-called West. China's influence is growing you say? My first reaction is concern, but my second is humility, as if looking in a mirror. I can't help but feel a little like this article immaturely criticises a topic that it never has an intention to understand. The entire premise of being able to so easily stir such ominous sentiment betrays the existence of the elephant in the West's room: Western power is so taken for granted we no longer know how to treat it as a privilege. It's embarrassing, in fact I think we have, at the very least, a responsibility to be embarrassed, that unironic, one-sided criticism of China is culturally acceptable. This is not at all to imply that China doesn't represent the absolute worst of human behavior, I'm not naïve. It's to say that the conversation about China is really the stirrings of a new awakening in the West's self-understanding.
I believe the article is sensationalist precisely because the target audience would generally take western power for granted. It takes strong words to really get across the message that China isn't playing around and has the power to back their ambitions.
This isn't about western power, it's about western values being protected in the west. I'm sure that people wouldn't be so concerned if China kept its censorship within its borders. As far as I know the west doesn't systematically subvert Chinese values within China.
Facebook suspended Mr. Guo’s account. In a statement, the company said the account published the personal information of others without their consent, which violated the platform’s policies. A spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Beijing’s complaints played a role.
Chinese authorities have also successfully persuaded Google to pull down content that had been available around the globe.
How do they use those standing desks without a spine?
China has great influence in Hollywood, where major studios edit their films to meet Chinese censorship demands. When Disney made a film about the Dalai Lama, several years later the CEO of Disney traveled to China and apologized in person, saying it would never happen again. The Chinese government is literally censoring political content in the United States and other Western countries.
Here's a cite for the Disney story. I've read about Chinese censors reviewing films, and Hollywood self-censoring, but I don't have time to find those cites.
The one that really sticks out is the recent Red Dawn remake. I mean, really, North Korea is going to invade the pacific coast? It was clearly written about Communist China, that's the only way the movie could have made the slightest bit of sense, but they kowtowed and turned it into a dumpster fire, and they still didn't procure release rights there.
True, they requested that Red Dawn be re-edited, so that China was not the bad guy. I have not seen the movie, nor do I care to.
However, let's think about this situation for a moment, as rational adults. And if you can, then try to think about this from the other side.
There is a lot of bad blood coming out of American media about China. It's in the news, the movies, the TV shows, the literature, it's everywhere. Unless you are dense, then I think this can be established as a fact. China is continually being painted as the big bad scary commie, that's out to eat your children (or something like that), or at least, they're taking your iPhone assembling slavery jobs.
A movie like this, would add more fuel to the fire. You, as an intelligent individual may be able to distinguish that Red Dawn is a fictional movie, with good and bad guys. And this sells tickets. And Americans love this! They want a big bad evil enemy, that their country can destroy. And right now, China is it!
However, can you guarantee that another American, of lesser educational intelligence than yourself, can distinguish such a thing? That this is pure fiction, and not a proxy of reality.
Nobody wants to be painted as the bad guy. Americans movies will certainly never paint America as the bad guy, despite the fact that millions have died at the receiving end of American weapons. In fact, I can't recall any media where America is painted as the bad guy.
The Chinese people certainly don't want to see themselves as the bad guys. Especially not when it's a historical fact, that they have been severely dominated by Western nations. And hundreds of millions of their people have suffered and died. And to this day, there are certain white people, that are proud of what their race did to China in the 1800s. And if you find this shocking, please let me know. You can find this perception all over the internet, and you can poll your close friends, and ask them what they truly think.
Anyways, movies are political statements. When you make it too real, then it hits too close to home. And there are certain dangers with that kind of propaganda. And it will certainly upset the people on the receiving end of it.
Stick to making movies about aliens and their probing devices, zombies, and superheros in tights. Or killing the evil German Nazis. Nobody will question these kinds of movies.
I understand that no one likes being painted as the bad guy, but this is a very odd claim: "Americans movies will certainly never paint America as the bad guy, despite the fact that millions have died at the receiving end of American weapons. In fact, I can't recall any media where America is painted as the bad guy."
I'm not American but this suggests you have experienced very little of the variety of American movies or general media? There are not only plenty of American movies and media critical of America and American policy but there is a long history of such. Without going back too far in history, the media presentation of the Vietnam war, for example, may be something of a cliché but it's a valid example.
The GP comment has the hallmarks of Chinese gov't propaganda, which reaches even here. You'll see it every time criticism of China appears: 'The U.S. does it too.' Sometimes the application of it is just laughable:
> Americans movies will certainly never paint America as the bad guy
Wow.
> There is a lot of bad blood coming out of American media about China
The paranoid, we're-picked-on perspective.
Much of the comment is directly from the rhetoric of the Chinese Communist Party and government:
> Anyways, movies are political statements. When you make it too real, then it hits too close to home. And there are certain dangers with that kind of propaganda. And it will certainly upset the people on the receiving end of it.
Everything is political. Avoid politics that challenge the Chinese Communist Party for reasons of public order, which just upsets people - the public doesn't want to think about politics and become upset. Promoting Chinese Communist Party-approved politics is ok, because that increases public order.
> Stick to making movies about aliens and their probing devices, zombies, and superheros in tights. Or killing the evil German Nazis. Nobody will question these kinds of movies.
Uh, I'll try to keep that in mind. We wouldn't want to make a movie that anyone questioned!
Everything you said, just reinforced my positions.
You can't even acknowledge that my positions may have some merit.
And that's the problem with trying to have a rational discussion on sensitive things like this. You get people like this guy, that only sees it from his angle. And this whole thing just becomes another echo chamber.
This is just me soapboxing, but I would argue that situations like this illustrate a need for online social platforms run by the state. I realize the obvious vulnerabilities of such a setup, but if we believe free speech to be an essential element of our societies then we need social platforms beholden only to our own laws even if they simply exist in parallel to private platforms. The internet, and social media in this context, have become just as fundamentally important to discussions and grassroots politics as the street corner once was.
You'd then have different social platforms for different countries.
Instead of run by the state, governments could choose to give out vouchers redeemable only at social platforms that charge users directly for their services instead of relying on the advertising and data-sales game.
I think your criticism is valid but I don't see it as unsolvable. Interconnectivity and decisions around how to facilitate it can be added later. While they are important elements for global dialogue, the first and foremost goal should be cultivating a domestic product that is suffiently feature rich to be a valid alternative to the current offerings. Interconnectivity with other social networks is a secondary goal that can be pursued as things progress.
Such a platform is desperately hard to argue for, but I suspect that a trusted, basic platform provided by governments will become defacto in many nations within our lifetimes. We do have component precedent cases to build upon in Estonia, with the (failed) British ID cards etc, but I do wish a nation somewhere was further along. Perhaps small countries Luxembourg, Belgium, principities
and Estonia are the places to keep an eye on rather than China, USA et al?
I also believe that such a platform is the quickest path towards incorruptible technocracies, slowly but surely through referendums being opened up through the platform (small, local decisions at first).
If this does not occur in the public sector, then I view governments as the taxi industry to capitalism's uber, and it will be the free market (controlled by increasingly intelligent public demand more than lagging legsislation) that starts to provide more 'pure democracy' behaviors. (As an aside, I wonder whether we shall start to see more interestingly structured IPOs)
The cynic in me sadly suspects that socialism just isn't fast enough, and that the free market will be the dominant tool for change - But that slowly but surely, public voice will become a more ethical one - In this era we are in which is surely a second age of enlightenment. Hopefully this will sculpt the free market to be more aligned with the commons, and less brutally and bluntly aimed at collecting $.
Conversely, it's arguable that we need social platforms that are immune to censorship by any state or private party. Such as properly implemented Tor onion services. But readily accessible from the open Internet.
I don't think these ideas need to be a binary choice. Some amount of redundancy may be beneficial. Strong anonymous communication is desirable when trying to defend against the state but at the same time if it's accessible and anonymous I'd argue it has the same vulnerabilities as Facebook or Twitter currently do with regard to being a non-obvious (to the layperson) propaganda tool. On the other hand, a state sponsored system runs the risk of being used to suppress dissidence. It could be argued that having both and simply paying the cost of redundancy might be a good idea. I don't know if it's the direction I'd argue for, but it's the first thing to come to mind as an off the cuff solution.
You're posting this comment on Hacker News and not 4Chan for a reason. Censorship is absolutely essential to make an internet community tolerable to people outside a tiny cohort of edgelords.
The important distinction is censorship of citizen-vs-citizen aggression, and censorship of political dissent. (If Hacker News unconditionally deleted all criticism of YC companies, I'd visit 4chan instead.)
And that implies we can't solve the issue with technology alone. Moderation needs to be possible, but we have to figure out a way to prevent abuse.
That's true. But that's mostly about different userbases. HN is actually not all that censored. It's largely community moderated. Very little gets completely deleted, just downvoted and flagged to oblivion.
Disruptive users do get shadow-banned, but it's trivial to create new ones. With accumulating karma, there is some pressure to self-censor. But overall, I like it better than StackExchange or reddit, for example.
I think there is a serious national security argument to be made against having the U.S. internet connect freely to Russian, Chinese, and other geopolitical adversary's internet.
Perhaps this is me being overly cynical, but a state-run social media platform seems like a recipe for massive, invisible, unchecked government surveillance and/or censorship. The last several years have made it abundantly clear that many parts of the US government do not consider privacy a right, and while our rights to free speech remain intact, I do not believe it is safe to assume this will remain the case across future administrations. In the worst case, a sufficiently popular administration could abuse state-run social platforms to locate, silence, and/or arrest dissidents, paving the way towards China-esque authoritarianism.
While such an extreme scenario is, needless to say, unlikely, the idea of centralizing the majority of social media under the control of a government that has shown increasing interest in mass surveillance remains something I am exceedingly dubious about.
I agree and this is why I would argue in favor of parallelism rather than replacement with regard to private social media platforms. I think it's important that there is a platform insulated from domestic intervention, but I think it's just as important to have a platform that isn't vulnerable to outside economic influence. Right now the best solution I can think of is to do both separately and just accept that one will probably be redundant to the other most of the time.
>This is just me soapboxing, but I would argue that situations like this illustrate a need for online social platforms run by the state.
Most major social media collaborate so well with their country's elites, governments and national interests, that they might as well be run by their state.
I disagree. The notion of inserting the state as the primary social intermediary in our society scares the living daylights out of me.
I do agree with your thesis that we need social platforms immune to arbitrary censorship, however.
I think the solution is some sort of trustless P2P system, where no one entity exercises ultimate control, and censorship is impossible, or at least very difficult. Of course that means that the platform won't be beholden to any nation's laws, irrespective of whether those laws are, in my opinion, just (criminalizing distribution of child pornography, for example) or not (criminalizing open political dissent, for example).
However, if I have to choose between absolute free speech and government- or megacorp-controlled, surveilled, and mediated social interaction, I choose absolute free speech.
Isn't everyone trying to police what people say online now? Least of all the nytimes and the rest of the media? Europe does it. We do it. The media advocates for it. Is it just bad when the chinese do it?
90% of the time everyone here seems to support censorship and control over social media. Then the story is about china and everyone is against it.
But the people most censored on social media in the West are alt-right. Are you saying that white people wanting their own communities and countries is a legitimate interest on par with the Tibetans wanting their own communities and country?
(Pardon the bit of philosophy, but I think it's on-topic, well-grounded, and substantially novel (at least to me!):)
The myriad of issues of the present era seem chaotic, but I'm starting to believe I see the defining theme, the one that will characterize it in history books, and I see the story in the article as merely a part of it: The contest between democracy and liberty on one hand, and wealth and power for an elite on the other. People like Thiel say "freedom and democracy" are not "compatible" with "capitalism".[0] Similarly, the Chinese government (and Russian, and others) is a wealthy elite that keeps the power from its citizens and the bulk of the wealth to itself. It's aristocracy: The belief that power should be controlled by the elite and inherited, not delegated by a vote of universal peers with equal rights.
It's not really "capitalism" that that Thiel advocates, but economic power for the currently wealthy unrestricted by the democratic wishes of other citizens (i.e. simply more power for himself, the oldest, most base political instinct - again, see China). He has fellow advocates in the current US government: For example, the Secretary of State (another business elite) and others have openly said the US shouldn't sacrifice making money for human rights, and openly support brutal, oppressive dictatorships. In the US courts, conservatives have given corporations and wealthy far more power over the democratic will of the people - corporations have gained Constitutional rights of real humans; they and the wealthy have gained unlimited, anonymous financial influence in politics and elections; and they've gained protections from the courts themselves (class-action restrictions, arbitration requirements, etc.). Another example is one vein of extreme anti-regulation dogma that says, on principle, economic powers should not be limited by the will of the majority (I'm not saying all arguments against regulation are problematic, only the principle that the issues shouldn't be decided democratically).
At times there truly is an immediate tradeoff. Daimler-Benz, Google, Hollywood, and others have to deal with this real problem in China and it will affect their bottom lines. But from an historical perspective it's nothing new and is a minor sacrifice. Few of those companies would exist in their current state or enjoy their wealth if not for the massive sacrifices of life and wealth made by prior generations; there are 18-year-olds still at the bottom of the English Channel who never even set foot in France or fired a weapon. What are the corporations and we doing for the next generation? Will we be merely parasites that consume the benefits bestowed on us and pass on less, rather than invest in and expand freedom as our ancestors did? The U.S. Declaration of Independence ends "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" for liberty. It wasn't the opposite: they didn't pledge to give up their liberty for greater fortunes - but that's what Thiel, et al want.
In the long run, it's not a tradeoff. Giving freedom and opportunity to more people makes them more productive; it's a wonderful, mutually-reinforcing phenomenon between democracy and freedom on one hand and prosperity on the other. It has made the democracies the wealthiest, most free countries in the history of the world. It has given hope and liberty to more than a billion people; today's wealthy were yesterday's poor. It's worked throughout the world, from Japan to Latin America to Taiwan to Europe and the US to many more places.
But at times there are immediate tradeoffs and sacrifices that we must decide to make: Will we give up wealth for democracy and freedom? Do we want democracy and freedom (and long-term prosperity), or unbridled economic wealth and power for a nascent aristocracy? It seems like an easy choice to me once you think about it that way.[1]
105 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadI don't think this is that hard of a decision, is it? Just say no and cut ties with efforts for China as a market. Any profits there are not worth jeopardizing all of the privacy and precedents that are being slowly pushed.
I have been befuddled by the behavior of young people on these axis for the last 10 years. This observation you’ve made is super seductive... but I think the more likely reason we are in this mess is that the younger gens are foundationally devoid of skepticism.
I applaud your creativity though. It definitely could be a contributing factor.
Edit: I don't think they want to repeal it. I think they want to ignore it. In fact- I don't think anyone actually wants to go through the hassle of repeal for any of the previously mentioned amendments, which would be the right approach. They just want some magical executive order that usurps the constitution.
China hasn't come close to passing the US in military technology in fact.
Technologically they're behind the US in: destroyers, submarines, helicopters, drones, laser weapons, satellites, integrated command systems, aircraft carriers, ICBMs and general nuclear weapon technology, tanks, bombers, jet fighters. In several of these categories, China is extremely far behind.
The Germans, French, British and Russians also have countless military gear that is still technologically well ahead of China. Overall, Russia's military technology capabilities are well ahead of China. China still struggles with primitives like jet engines, which Russia has long since mastered.
China still can't field a single long range aircraft carrier. Currently they're unable to push their military projection much beyond Japan and limited parts of the Indian Ocean. The US has true global force projection to practically every corner of the globe. Will China catch up? Plausibly; it'll take 30 years for them to build all the bases necessary to do it.
EDIT: Hey serial downvoter, do you realize you've missed a few?
Because they have a fiduciary duty to, obviously.
Meanwhile since Google was pushed out of China, they have become a near trillion dollar juggernaut. Since fiscal 2009, Google has grown from $23b to $109b in sales. They're about nine to ten times the size of Baidu and growing as fast. That's the cost of being stuck inside of China, while Google is stuck outside of China.
This is why Apple doesn't sell away your data, why every city is filled with local and organic restaurants, etc.
The market does select for moral positions, you just might not like those positions.
Counterpoint: Scrooge-McDuck-Money-Bin.gif
Its a delicate situation and hopefully the government will not be afraid to deal with it, whilst not turning it into a xenophobic support point.
I'd love to know what sorts of things are going on in Africa.
It's nice to see the mainstream finally starting to wake up from their long slumber though, perhaps there's hope yet.
I don't understand from your comment whether you're referring to the Australian govt or the Chinese government as having bought all the press. And who "they" are when referring to disrupting lectures.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/12/sam-d...
And about takedown requests to Google etc. MPAA and other "rights holders" do this frequently. Indeed, the US government uses DNS poisoning to censor sites that it considers illegal. Or requests that other countries raid hosting services, and impound servers. Has China done that?
Anyway, just sayin'. I do believe that everything should be takedown-proof, for what it's worth.
https://www.google.com/search?q=swedish+citizen+china&source...
I would hope that you avail yourself of this wonderful resource in the future, saving time both for yourself and for others.
0) https://thediplomat.com/2018/02/the-strange-and-sad-case-of-...
You don't have a free speech right to post the copyrighted material of others, just sayin'.
Zuckerberg wants to be in China in such a bad way. He's learned Mandarin, plays up his family connections (via his wife's family), and puts on the charm when visiting China. He's created relationships with officials at every level. His representatives have talked with companies which may be partners or acquired at some point.
It does not surprise me one bit that Facebook will bend over backwards to accommodate officials on censorship demands. This is the cost of doing business in China for a tech company. Media companies learned this decades ago - read up on how Rupert Murdoch was able to operate there, it's quite fascinating.
Now it's Silicon Valley's turn, especially companies that specialize in communication -- social networks, phone manufacturers, companies that sell networking hardware, etc. The Chinese government's survival depends on information control, and if they can't do it themselves, then they force local and foreign companies to do it for them.
Don't think that this issue will be limited to human rights activists. It doesn't matter who you are -- your social media comments, family relationships, WeChat and Facebook messages, work connections on LinkedIn, and other digital footprints that reflect your attitude or influence will be used to build a social media score that determines your level of access to the country and ability to do business in China.
The scary prospect is that other countries will do the same thing ... if they haven't done so already.
(If he didn't, then of course Facebook should, first, not suspend his account to appease China, and second, not lie about why they did.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinophile
> A Sinophile or a Chinophile is a person who demonstrates a strong interest and love for Chinese culture or its people.[1] It is also commonly used to describe those knowledgeable of Chinese history and culture (such as scholars and students), non-native Chinese language speakers, pro-Chinese politicians, and people perceived as having a strong interest in any of the above.
That the combining form -phile is also used for perverted things doesn't negate its rather benign meaning.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_fetishism
In any case, I don't think it matters. China and Chinese is like a hobby for Zuckerberg that he is interested in. I don't think getting Facebook into China is a huge concern at all for him, he's just using his position to do what he wants.
Fetishizes is a pop-psychology term.
If he was doing that for the money, you'd think he would consult first with someone who actually knew better.
The guy is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar behemoth. He was always awkward, but he is also very calculated. He wants in on the Chinese market.
>If he was doing that for the money, you'd think he would consult first with someone who actually knew better.
And do what differently?
That is of course the only possibility Chinese can think of, while Americans just think he is being awkward.
> And do what differently?
Not do a bunch of cringe worthy stuff like asking Xi to name his child or jogging in Beijing smog.
Well, I'm not Chinese, and I think those who think he's being awkward are naive.
>Not do a bunch of cringe worthy stuff like asking Xi to name his child or jogging in Beijing smog.
Cringe-worthy to whom? Because the Chinese audience will probably eat-up that kind of soapy stuff, the same way Americans cherish the cliche stuff performed by people coming into the US and seeking their business (businesses, actors, etc).
He even positively blurbed Xi's doorstop of a book: https://www.amazon.com/Xi-Jinping-Governance-English-Languag...
> Facebook suspended Mr. Guo’s account. In a statement, the company said the account published the personal information of others without their consent, which violated the platform’s policies.
One way to test the truthfulness of Facebook's claim is to see whether or not they suspend the accounts of users who make corruption claims about US officials. Surely there were a lot of such claims involving personal information about politicians during the last election cycle. Did Facebook suspend those accounts?
Chinese authorities have also successfully persuaded Google to pull down content that had been available around the globe.
How do they use those standing desks without a spine?
Here's a cite for the Disney story. I've read about Chinese censors reviewing films, and Hollywood self-censoring, but I don't have time to find those cites.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/business/international/ch...
However, let's think about this situation for a moment, as rational adults. And if you can, then try to think about this from the other side.
There is a lot of bad blood coming out of American media about China. It's in the news, the movies, the TV shows, the literature, it's everywhere. Unless you are dense, then I think this can be established as a fact. China is continually being painted as the big bad scary commie, that's out to eat your children (or something like that), or at least, they're taking your iPhone assembling slavery jobs.
A movie like this, would add more fuel to the fire. You, as an intelligent individual may be able to distinguish that Red Dawn is a fictional movie, with good and bad guys. And this sells tickets. And Americans love this! They want a big bad evil enemy, that their country can destroy. And right now, China is it!
However, can you guarantee that another American, of lesser educational intelligence than yourself, can distinguish such a thing? That this is pure fiction, and not a proxy of reality.
Nobody wants to be painted as the bad guy. Americans movies will certainly never paint America as the bad guy, despite the fact that millions have died at the receiving end of American weapons. In fact, I can't recall any media where America is painted as the bad guy.
The Chinese people certainly don't want to see themselves as the bad guys. Especially not when it's a historical fact, that they have been severely dominated by Western nations. And hundreds of millions of their people have suffered and died. And to this day, there are certain white people, that are proud of what their race did to China in the 1800s. And if you find this shocking, please let me know. You can find this perception all over the internet, and you can poll your close friends, and ask them what they truly think.
Anyways, movies are political statements. When you make it too real, then it hits too close to home. And there are certain dangers with that kind of propaganda. And it will certainly upset the people on the receiving end of it.
Stick to making movies about aliens and their probing devices, zombies, and superheros in tights. Or killing the evil German Nazis. Nobody will question these kinds of movies.
I'm not American but this suggests you have experienced very little of the variety of American movies or general media? There are not only plenty of American movies and media critical of America and American policy but there is a long history of such. Without going back too far in history, the media presentation of the Vietnam war, for example, may be something of a cliché but it's a valid example.
> Americans movies will certainly never paint America as the bad guy
Wow.
> There is a lot of bad blood coming out of American media about China
The paranoid, we're-picked-on perspective.
Much of the comment is directly from the rhetoric of the Chinese Communist Party and government:
> Anyways, movies are political statements. When you make it too real, then it hits too close to home. And there are certain dangers with that kind of propaganda. And it will certainly upset the people on the receiving end of it.
Everything is political. Avoid politics that challenge the Chinese Communist Party for reasons of public order, which just upsets people - the public doesn't want to think about politics and become upset. Promoting Chinese Communist Party-approved politics is ok, because that increases public order.
> Stick to making movies about aliens and their probing devices, zombies, and superheros in tights. Or killing the evil German Nazis. Nobody will question these kinds of movies.
Uh, I'll try to keep that in mind. We wouldn't want to make a movie that anyone questioned!
You can't even acknowledge that my positions may have some merit.
And that's the problem with trying to have a rational discussion on sensitive things like this. You get people like this guy, that only sees it from his angle. And this whole thing just becomes another echo chamber.
You should consider reading this:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/the-social-media-ech...
At this point, you can have your say. And we can agree to disagree.
EDIT: Deleted response to personal comments.
Instead of run by the state, governments could choose to give out vouchers redeemable only at social platforms that charge users directly for their services instead of relying on the advertising and data-sales game.
I also believe that such a platform is the quickest path towards incorruptible technocracies, slowly but surely through referendums being opened up through the platform (small, local decisions at first).
If this does not occur in the public sector, then I view governments as the taxi industry to capitalism's uber, and it will be the free market (controlled by increasingly intelligent public demand more than lagging legsislation) that starts to provide more 'pure democracy' behaviors. (As an aside, I wonder whether we shall start to see more interestingly structured IPOs)
The cynic in me sadly suspects that socialism just isn't fast enough, and that the free market will be the dominant tool for change - But that slowly but surely, public voice will become a more ethical one - In this era we are in which is surely a second age of enlightenment. Hopefully this will sculpt the free market to be more aligned with the commons, and less brutally and bluntly aimed at collecting $.
the "Best Korea" has the fastest socialism in the world - heck it even has its own "social networking platform"
...and it's also "democratic" (in its own way, of course)
And that implies we can't solve the issue with technology alone. Moderation needs to be possible, but we have to figure out a way to prevent abuse.
Disruptive users do get shadow-banned, but it's trivial to create new ones. With accumulating karma, there is some pressure to self-censor. But overall, I like it better than StackExchange or reddit, for example.
Edit: I just noticed that this submission about Bitcoin energy use has been raised from the dead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16498776
While such an extreme scenario is, needless to say, unlikely, the idea of centralizing the majority of social media under the control of a government that has shown increasing interest in mass surveillance remains something I am exceedingly dubious about.
Most major social media collaborate so well with their country's elites, governments and national interests, that they might as well be run by their state.
I do agree with your thesis that we need social platforms immune to arbitrary censorship, however.
I think the solution is some sort of trustless P2P system, where no one entity exercises ultimate control, and censorship is impossible, or at least very difficult. Of course that means that the platform won't be beholden to any nation's laws, irrespective of whether those laws are, in my opinion, just (criminalizing distribution of child pornography, for example) or not (criminalizing open political dissent, for example).
However, if I have to choose between absolute free speech and government- or megacorp-controlled, surveilled, and mediated social interaction, I choose absolute free speech.
90% of the time everyone here seems to support censorship and control over social media. Then the story is about china and everyone is against it.
"After U.S.-Based Reporters Exposed Abuses, China Seized Their Relatives"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/world/asia/china-xinjiang...
"Chinese Police Are Demanding Personal Information From Uighurs in France. Officials have threatened to detain relatives of those who don’t comply."
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/02/chinese-police-are-secre...
The myriad of issues of the present era seem chaotic, but I'm starting to believe I see the defining theme, the one that will characterize it in history books, and I see the story in the article as merely a part of it: The contest between democracy and liberty on one hand, and wealth and power for an elite on the other. People like Thiel say "freedom and democracy" are not "compatible" with "capitalism".[0] Similarly, the Chinese government (and Russian, and others) is a wealthy elite that keeps the power from its citizens and the bulk of the wealth to itself. It's aristocracy: The belief that power should be controlled by the elite and inherited, not delegated by a vote of universal peers with equal rights.
It's not really "capitalism" that that Thiel advocates, but economic power for the currently wealthy unrestricted by the democratic wishes of other citizens (i.e. simply more power for himself, the oldest, most base political instinct - again, see China). He has fellow advocates in the current US government: For example, the Secretary of State (another business elite) and others have openly said the US shouldn't sacrifice making money for human rights, and openly support brutal, oppressive dictatorships. In the US courts, conservatives have given corporations and wealthy far more power over the democratic will of the people - corporations have gained Constitutional rights of real humans; they and the wealthy have gained unlimited, anonymous financial influence in politics and elections; and they've gained protections from the courts themselves (class-action restrictions, arbitration requirements, etc.). Another example is one vein of extreme anti-regulation dogma that says, on principle, economic powers should not be limited by the will of the majority (I'm not saying all arguments against regulation are problematic, only the principle that the issues shouldn't be decided democratically).
At times there truly is an immediate tradeoff. Daimler-Benz, Google, Hollywood, and others have to deal with this real problem in China and it will affect their bottom lines. But from an historical perspective it's nothing new and is a minor sacrifice. Few of those companies would exist in their current state or enjoy their wealth if not for the massive sacrifices of life and wealth made by prior generations; there are 18-year-olds still at the bottom of the English Channel who never even set foot in France or fired a weapon. What are the corporations and we doing for the next generation? Will we be merely parasites that consume the benefits bestowed on us and pass on less, rather than invest in and expand freedom as our ancestors did? The U.S. Declaration of Independence ends "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" for liberty. It wasn't the opposite: they didn't pledge to give up their liberty for greater fortunes - but that's what Thiel, et al want.
In the long run, it's not a tradeoff. Giving freedom and opportunity to more people makes them more productive; it's a wonderful, mutually-reinforcing phenomenon between democracy and freedom on one hand and prosperity on the other. It has made the democracies the wealthiest, most free countries in the history of the world. It has given hope and liberty to more than a billion people; today's wealthy were yesterday's poor. It's worked throughout the world, from Japan to Latin America to Taiwan to Europe and the US to many more places.
But at times there are immediate tradeoffs and sacrifices that we must decide to make: Will we give up wealth for democracy and freedom? Do we want democracy and freedom (and long-term prosperity), or unbridled economic wealth and power for a nascent aristocracy? It seems like an easy choice to me once you think about it that way.[1]
[0] [deleted] ↗ (comment deleted)