Huh. It says that /after/ banning animal crossing it’s taking it to the extreme to block users. Which I take to suggest they will be applying it to other games.
> One-player online games will also be subject to surveillance, as a new real-name mechanism is going to be implemented in China. Also, the new law will not allow for zombies and plagues, map editing, roleplaying, as well as organizing a union in games — regulations which are believed to be inspired by the sensitive content made by Joshua Wong.
I'll admit the article isn't exactly well written which makes me have trouble trusting it. But doesn't the above quote imply that they are in fact censoring other video games than Animal Crossing.
> I'm guessing because they can't effectively monitor information on the platform.
I not sure about this. Usually, they won't let a social platform operate without a self-censoring team, I guess they will force gaming platforms to
do the same.
Would be good to have another source for this. The current site constantly refers to SARS-CoV-2 as "Wuhan virus" which might have been passable in January, but now is just racist and annoying.
I'm not about to go searching, I'm watching WION on youtube at the moment which is a (new, 2015) news outlet in India which often refers to it as Wuhan Virus, but if I posted anything that wasn't CNN or NYT or such I'll prob just get downvoted with comments saying "oh thats fake news" or "thats not a creditable because we don't have it here in America".
To be clear when I say "most of asia" I don't mean, every country, and every news outlet. But that it's not uncommon.
I've seen news in Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, all refer to it as Wuhan Virus.
Singapore (where I live) I don't recall seeing it referred to as Wuhan Virus since maybe mid-march.
In any case if someone refers to it as Chinese/China Virus, I completely agree that it's racist. But Wuhan is the origin, and the original name given. Renaming has probably only hurt china more as people are very angry with the WHO and ccp.
Calling it Chinese Virus is not racist either. China is not a race.
I never head anybody calling it "Chinese Virus" until right after Chinese officials were found to be spreading rumors that the virus came from a US military operation. When those rumors started, the Chinese ambassador to the US was called in to get a scolding and the president immediately started using "Chinese Virus" very purposely.
In other words, it's simply the mildest justified revenge, without even a claim that anything was intentional.
Calling it Chinese Virus is not racist either. Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome, German Measles, Japanese Virus, Japanese Encephalitis, Russian Flu are all named after countries. Also "China" is not a race, it's a country.
I would agree if the original name was China/Chinese Virus. The problem is that, that particular naming is targeted at china because they were being twats by making rumors/propaganda blaming America.
So I feel that the people using that name are using it as a middle finger, which I don't agree with. That doesn't make the words itself racist, but the usage of it racist.
I hope that makes sense?!?
Wuhan is just the place of origin and no one battered an eyelid to it when it was first named Wuhan Virus or Wu Flu. I've never seen it used negatively.
The usage of it still isn't really racist, because China is not a race, but rather a country made up of people of many races. I agree that "China/Chinese Virus" is often being used with bad intentions.
Like I said, "China" is not a race. Also controlling/suppressing people speech because a country wants it is dangerous. And why exactly are we even debating such a silly topic when China is literally killing, torturing, silencing and hiding their own people and whistleblowers?
I think we are debating something which doesn't need to be debated and also have our priorities wrong. We should really be talking about what China has been up to and not this silly topic.
What really is racist is China banning blacks from their restaurants:
We don't name viruses after geographic locations anymore to avoid stigmatization. I don't know why you all wants to hold on to such an unnecessary practice, especially when so many viruses and diseases were named based on an incorrect origin.
> "a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person."
and gives the following example
> "the stigma of having gone to prison will always be with me"
This is an example of rational stigma. For example if you know someone who went to prison for robbery, they would have a rational stigma associated with them when they try to apply for a job at a bank. Not an oxymoron.
Denying jobs to recovered convicts is a very contested topic. That stigma turns into an irrational and easily disproved belief that a convict can never really recover and start leading a normal life. Such stigma then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Stigmatization is the act of creating stigmas. Maintaining them. And that is very clearly not rational. To be rational, you'd re-evaluate the person from the ground up before each event. Sure, being in prison would still be a factor, one of many. But stigma assumes that this factor alone defines the whole outcome, which is irrational.
I feel like you are talking about it from a political correctness point of view. A bank denying a job to a convicted robber is 100% justified and saying that's somehow not rational is just silly.
I'm talking from pure logic point. Denying a job to a convict (as a rule) is based on the assumption that it's absolutely impossible for a convict to recover and start leading a normal life. It is based on a 0% probability of that happening. And that's quite clearly not the case.
That may have been true before the scientists agreed on a proper name. Now it has one, so calling it Wuhan virus or Chinese virus is inappropriate. The virus now mostly resides in the US and has already mutated so there is a European variant and US variant.
Also, I'm now in Asia and everybody around me calls it COVID or Corona.
You realise Chinese have members of peaceful community in a literal concentration camp. I mean it's arguable whether it's good or bad because I've never met their particular peaceful community and don't know how much more peaceful it is but still mentioning so you can adjust your trigger.
It's as common to use the original geographical source of the virus in the name as it is to use some chemistry/biology/latin driven name or in your case an acronym.
Following formal guidelines in scientific papers and other formal discourse is another matter. Newspapers, social media, interpersonal communication, etc isn't a big deal IMO. People know what they are referring to. That's all that matters in that sort of language, humans are smart enough to figure out context and intention. Especially since there's nothing inherently 'wrong' with using relevant identifiers like geography.
Trying to constantly redefine and re-purpose certain words/phrases in absolute terms is an arbitrary and endless fight against the reality of everyday language. It's ultimately a giant waste of time that only adds more personal/political/ideological baggage than it removes, to what common-sense was already more than sufficient to handle. It's also just as often used to 'spin' and attack people and purposefully misinterpret people's intentions and context of usage, despite it being obvious to the rational reader, as it is about 'protecting' others. It then makes us question your intentions in 'correcting' them as much as theirs in using it, and we're no better off in terms of clarity. The less of it, the better.
One can object to a use of language that is likely to stir racist sentiment against Chinese people, and more broadly Asian people (as we very much have seen especially early in the outbreak), without implying support for the CCP.
not only is this unrelated, the whole justification for the concentration camps to begin with was uyghur terrorist attacks. i cant defend the concentration camps, of course, but "peaceful" just seems disingenuous
Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. These threads are all the same and we're trying to avoid endless, angry repetition here.
> 4. It is not allowed to promote the "Global Service" function in the game. If there is any, you should go offline and delete the relevant function in time;
Not sure how accurate the source is or how accurate the translation is. The word Promote is in there, so maybe it's related to marketing (including box art, etc)?
"Terms that should be avoided in disease names include geographic locations (e.g. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Spanish Flu, Rift Valley fever), people’s names (e.g. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Chagas disease), species of animal or food (e.g. swine flu, bird flu, monkey pox), cultural, population, industry or occupational references (e.g. legionnaires), and terms that incite undue fear (e.g. unknown, fatal, epidemic)."
The same WHO whose Director had been lying about the virus because China was telling them to? On 14th of Jan, WHO tweeted that the virus doesn't transmit human to human. They ignored Taiwan's warning from December that China was lying and then later claimed they never received any warning from Taiwan (despite emails showing they did). The same WHO which claimed restricting travel was not required and ineffective. Director Tedros was elected because of hard lobbying by China. No wonder he would try to save face for China.
Tedros also tried to get Robert Mugabe as WHO's goodwill ambassador:
>> One-player online games will also be subject to surveillance, as a new real-name mechanism is going to be implemented in China. Also, the new law will not allow for zombies and plagues, map editing, roleplaying, as well as organizing a union in games — regulations which are believed to be inspired by the sensitive content made by Joshua Wong.
Something will be the breaking point for this level of restriction/overreach in the name of surveillance.
It would be hilarious if it were zombies or map editing/mods.
It's amazing that Joshua Wang's actions have resulted in the game being made unavailable for an entire nation. Banning the entire game is also an incredible example of the streisand effect.
> Something will be the breaking point for this level of restriction/overreach in the name of surveillance.
Nothing will be the breaking point short of political revolution. The CCP has gladly murdered its' own citizens by the thousands before and they will gladly do so again to maintain power. That's how authoritarian regimes work. Combined with the fact that they are powerful enough geopolitically that no other nation will do anything about it, China is set on its' dystopian nightmare future.
> The CCP has gladly murdered its' own citizens by the thousands before and they will gladly do so again to maintain power
That may be happening now via the virus. China's case count is still around 80k, where it has been since the virus started taking off elsewhere.
Millions died in Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and then again later in his "Cultural Revolution". Not only did he lead the country through two periods of extreme death and famine, but also he is still an icon to many in China. Xi could very well do the same thing.
> China's case count is still around 80k, where it has been since the virus started taking off elsewhere.
Many of the Chinese economic growth and development stats are fudged or are often unconsidered unreliable. I don't know why people think they'd be any more truthful about a case count.
Wuhan does have a reputation of being the #1 source of Chinese punk bands tho.
I think the implication of the grandparent is political revolution.
Personally I think it's a little unlikely at the moment because of China's surveillance state and generally rising standards of living in China over the last couple decades, but FWIW the Syrian Civil War was started over graffiti.
As the lockdown showed, many people are happy with authoritarianism if they think their government is keeping them safe and well fed. Only until the majority starve will there be revolution.
I can't disagree more -- I am completely following all social distancing in California. Staying home, only going out when necessary, having virtual gatherings with friends. I'm also supporting our government enforcing these policies for others. But it's absolutely not because I trust our government to keep us safe, nor do I trust them to decide to keep people home. I trust the greater scientific community, and my own due diligence in understanding the issue, and am making an informed decision.
I abhor the fact that people are protesting the stay-at-home order en masse in some states, but I believe that they're looking at it from the same perspective as me. I feel it was a failure of their education to not understand the issue, and that they're doing the rational thing if they believe they're being forced into authoritarianism. I also believe they're doing the rational thing since we have very little social support system for many of those people, but that's beside the point.
If the government made all guns illegal and said "we haven't gotten rid of all guns from the streets, you must stay home or risk being shot by rogue gunmen, with a fine of $1000 for leaving home", I would also be protesting in the same way as those people today.
I can't speak for other countries, but people in the U.S. are very opposed to being told what to do, especially by their government. Most are okay with it in a pinch for a short while, but I don't think any sort of authoritarianism is going to fly in the U.S. long term.
> Something will be the breaking point for this level of restriction/overreach in the name of surveillance.
If anything, I believe this will be used to create more anger towards the democracy movement in Hong Kong. Blaming these restrictions on them because they are endangering “national security”.
I remember when PUBG got “banned” in China, there wasn’t any real backlash against it. People are still playing it, although only against Chinese players.
> Something will be the breaking point for this level of restriction/overreach in the name of surveillance.
Ever since WWII, with Marxist scholars observing that Nazi states don't receive the unrest (to them: class struggle) that we'd otherwise expect it to have, they've strongly suspected that cultural hegemony goes a long way to preventing unrest.
This comes especially into relevance when you consider that the CCP is in a position of cultural hegemony with respect to its citizens to an extent that free societies simply aren't.
The more China is able to prevent its people from accessing actually trustable institutions, the stronger its citizens obedience to it.
You say Streisand effect, but this is very greatly weakened when the state controls the most powerful communication platforms, and have suppressed communication media that it doesn't control.
No, it goes deeper than that. The CPP is more like a symptom.
The culture is so fundamentally different that it's almost impossible to understand. Sure, there's a "westernized" minority, especially in Hong Kong, but they're ~irrelevant.
I'm against this tendency to alienate the Chinese as some unknowable "other". Yes, the culture is quite different than in the West, but we share vastly more through the common experience of being human. There are a lot of well-educated middle class Chinese who would hope for a more transparent and democratic system. But it is a complex and difficult issue. There are many of us in the US who hope for a similar change in our own country, and yet there doesn't seem like there's much we can do. Except vote, of course.
I agree with you, we have much more in common than the current online zeitgeist would lead you to believe. Many of my Chinese friends are genuinely lovely people just trying to do what's best for them and their families. Just like the rest of the world.
Unfortunately a lot of this attitude comes from the Chinese themselves when we see the knee-jerk reaction to any criticism of China with "you just don't understand China". Maybe so, but this attitude is not helpful. Though I definitely understand that reaction when I think about how I would feel if some foreigners started criticising my country.
I think there are 2 important things I'd like people to take away.
1) You are not your government, especially when they are not elected. Criticism of a country's government != criticism of that country's people.
2) The people doing the criticising should take more care to specify the target of the criticism, and to understand the collateral damage it may have.
Or leave for somewhere else more amenable to ones quality of life on the ground and/or wait for things to deteriorate sufficiently enough such that people want to change things. Or a host of other things people could do in any given environment besides voting.
You're projecting, I think. Sure, there are many millions of "well-educated middle class Chinese who would hope for a more transparent and democratic system". But they're irrelevant. Another Cultural Revolution, and they'd all be dead or in reeducation camps.
And just to be clear, I'm not judging who's better or worse.
eh. And there are many more well-educated middle class Chinese who generally believe in the ideas behind the CCP. Maybe not the implementation details - this policy, for example, is boneheaded and will disproportionately affect the middle class. But I've spoken to many who will acknowledge the benefits of democracy while simultaneously claiming that their system is the only system suited for China. (In fact I think this is an area Chinese people do much better in - they know much more about the West than we do about the East)
I'm against this tendency of implicitly assuming democracy to be undeniably good; you risk assuming bad faith from people who genuinely believe otherwise. It is also kind of off-putting to assume a superior default position by virtue of having a democratic system. Especially now, when it invites so many easy attacks - the quality of western leadership, the handling of covid-19, etc.
The current culture in China was created by the CCP. The culture of old China, before the cultural revolution, persists in Taiwan. Taiwan has very few of the problems that China has.
I'm no expert, but it's my impression that the faction that ended up controlling Taiwan is not the "culture of old China". It's the westernized elite that was trying to reform China as a democracy.
The only person in the world who is respected by both the government of PRC and ROC (Republic of China/Taiwan) is Sun Yat Sen. He's the man who wanted to reform China and remove the corruption associated with the previous Dynasties. Each respective government interpreted this in their own way but, it has to be remembered, that Taiwan was also a dictatorship under the White Terror until just over 30 years ago.
Taiwan became a democracy because because the people of Taiwan asked for it and the regime at the time, the Kuomintang, wished to seek democratic legitimacy in response to these demands. Since then, Taiwan has grown to become one of the most socially liberal societies in Asia.
I came here to say this. If you want to predict how the CCP will behave, the first step is to get a good understanding of Confucianism then work up from there.
Banning chat between Chinese and non-Chinese on WeChat only seems like a couple small steps down the slope, so I wouldn't be so sure your concern was misplaced.
I naively assumed the amount of spying going on on the platform was common knowledge, my bad.
And sure, no reason not to use it, as long as you're 100% certain you're never going to utter anything on the platform that isn't 100% aligned with the CCP party line.
You're vastly underestimating what modern AI can guess about you given enough "chatting with friends" data volume.
And we're not talking about spies here, we're talking about a centralized, tyrannical government building a detailed personality profile of you to make sure you are and will remain a well behaved sheep.
Google "chinese social score" if you want to know more.
This needs a better source. Other sources are saying this just a measure being thought off. Meanwhile no official word on this matter. The thing is there is lot of fake news going around regards China.
Also they'd be more nuanced now. They will likely ask/force Nintendo to crackdown than doing it themselves..
There won't be any better source. China will never publish these measures as laws or regulations, not in clear text nor formally acknowledge such "ban"h exists. It's an obscure code of conduct to extort companies in private sectors for "bad behaviour".
And yes it will be arbitrary enforced, the "ban" will differ from time to time and varies between provinces.
The only "proof" is some random screenshot from IM chat groups. I think journalist can write a headline like "Chat screenshot shows China tightens gaming ban" but it will be less clickbaity.
That China censors and controls media is not wrong. The only reason we have the tank man video is because the journalist hid the tape in the back of his room's toilet.
Reporting via various foreign news outlets should also be taken with a grain of salt since they cannot get the full truth without endangering their presence. Three reputable newspapers were recently kicked out of the country.
What's really going on in China is guesswork to a greater degree than elsewhere. The communist party prefers it this way.
I meant it is journalistically wrong to depend upon dubious and unreliable sources as basis for analysis..
It can't be denied that there is much misinformation/mistranslation/misunderstanding regards news from China from such unreliable sources. That calls for a nuanced analysis, that is sorely lacking in debating China related topics here.
I don't want to justify China, but the Wall Street Journal reporter who was ejected from Wuhan was overtly hostile, even cynical in their coverage, when the situation called for nuance. Also China officially has claimed the ejection of 3 US reporters a counter measure to the restrictions US has placed on Xinhua and People's Daily in operating in the US soil.
Tank Man video too; I don't think it as significant as the west thinks it is. Chinese government now claims that it shows the 'humanity' of their armed forces.
At the behest of the Chinese government, which means if they want to stay there they have to abide by the local censors. They still have to follow local laws, a foreign presence does not mean they are allowed to report honestly/freely. It's a basic, you follow our rules, and in turn we give you access, trade offs. Same thing happens often in media with reviewers.
I really wonder what censoring Animal Crossing will teach chinese children? Thinking about growing up knowing that so much is wrong and that even children can’t have a critical voice?
I'm wondering how certain game companies will react to this because they kept censoring and changing games to please China for a market they might now lose to some extent.
Title and article is misleading, as usual, alas. Being a Chinese gamer/coder is hard, everywhere you turned there's no less of anti-china content shove down your throat, at the same time an authoritarian regime squeeze on the other end.
We get it, 1940s there's mass slaughter, 1980s crazy things happened when there's a nutjob in charge. It's a country with 5000 years of history and 1.4 billion people each with life stories living and thriving, and a govt having bag of problems just like everywhere else. But, to some people, like youtube/github/stackoverflow still not enough to tell me I'm less of a human being, my family my friends and our beloved dog are being 'slaughtered',
Sorry, I must nitpick. Egypt and Iraq has 5000 years of history. China has 3000. Your first written record came in 1250 BC, latter day Shang dynasty. On the other hand at the same date Eastern Mediterranean has five great historical civilizations already, though nearly all perished in a collapse. Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Mycenaean Greece, and Anatolian Hittites.
The Chinese firewall is looking less like a method of tyrannical control, and more like a ridiculous attempt at troll-shielding an easily manipulated populace.
The chinese themselves actually prefer playing on local servers due to the amount of shit talking they get while playing on global servers. Unending amount of Tiananmen copypasta and free Hong Kong slogan its sickening.
They lag hard and they seem to hack and use cheats at higher percentages than non Chinese. There are lots of movements to segregate Chinese players onto their own servers in games like DotA 2 and Cs:go. The CCP decided that the people who spam the copypasta about how bad the CCP is were actually making an impact.
China literally got trolled out of video games - but it's because they trolled the world first. Reap what you sow...
Few years back I would occasionally run into groups of Chinese players that were creating 'bigger teams' in PUBG (usually you play team as team of 4 deathmatch with 100 players). They must have bigger groups queuing at the same time with same type of cosmetics to form bands of up to 12 players.
Its a lot of 'fun' to play 4 v 12. Trust me. </s>
As bad as it sounds I am glad they will be kept out by their own government.
I don't doubt it. Like I said, troll-shielding. The more interesting consequences of that don't happen in game chats though. The censorship apologists come out in force in the wake of a competitive player being banned for publicly supporting the HK protesters was a good demonstration of that. They were clearly struggling to understand the value of free-speech, and the fact that those accustomed to it are unaffected by "You wanna hurt my national pride?! Well I'm glad 9/11 happened! See, free speech is bad!"
The source is a politically-biased English-language Taiwanese tabloid known for spreading false information relating to the government of mainland China, especially regarding covid19. Doesn't pass the bullshit filter.
132 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 339 ms ] threadDodgy article title.
I'll admit the article isn't exactly well written which makes me have trouble trusting it. But doesn't the above quote imply that they are in fact censoring other video games than Animal Crossing.
I not sure about this. Usually, they won't let a social platform operate without a self-censoring team, I guess they will force gaming platforms to do the same.
Do you have a source for this?
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Wuhan%20virus,SAR...
To be clear when I say "most of asia" I don't mean, every country, and every news outlet. But that it's not uncommon.
I've seen news in Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, all refer to it as Wuhan Virus.
Singapore (where I live) I don't recall seeing it referred to as Wuhan Virus since maybe mid-march.
In any case if someone refers to it as Chinese/China Virus, I completely agree that it's racist. But Wuhan is the origin, and the original name given. Renaming has probably only hurt china more as people are very angry with the WHO and ccp.
I never head anybody calling it "Chinese Virus" until right after Chinese officials were found to be spreading rumors that the virus came from a US military operation. When those rumors started, the Chinese ambassador to the US was called in to get a scolding and the president immediately started using "Chinese Virus" very purposely.
In other words, it's simply the mildest justified revenge, without even a claim that anything was intentional.
I would agree if the original name was China/Chinese Virus. The problem is that, that particular naming is targeted at china because they were being twats by making rumors/propaganda blaming America.
So I feel that the people using that name are using it as a middle finger, which I don't agree with. That doesn't make the words itself racist, but the usage of it racist.
I hope that makes sense?!?
Wuhan is just the place of origin and no one battered an eyelid to it when it was first named Wuhan Virus or Wu Flu. I've never seen it used negatively.
I think we are debating something which doesn't need to be debated and also have our priorities wrong. We should really be talking about what China has been up to and not this silly topic.
What really is racist is China banning blacks from their restaurants:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52274326
https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/health-alert-u-s-consul...
> "a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person."
and gives the following example
> "the stigma of having gone to prison will always be with me"
This is an example of rational stigma. For example if you know someone who went to prison for robbery, they would have a rational stigma associated with them when they try to apply for a job at a bank. Not an oxymoron.
Stigmatization is the act of creating stigmas. Maintaining them. And that is very clearly not rational. To be rational, you'd re-evaluate the person from the ground up before each event. Sure, being in prison would still be a factor, one of many. But stigma assumes that this factor alone defines the whole outcome, which is irrational.
Also, I'm now in Asia and everybody around me calls it COVID or Corona.
Yeah... their sources aren't exactly ideal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mononegavirales#Order_organiza...
Informally that number is way higher.
It's as common to use the original geographical source of the virus in the name as it is to use some chemistry/biology/latin driven name or in your case an acronym.
Following formal guidelines in scientific papers and other formal discourse is another matter. Newspapers, social media, interpersonal communication, etc isn't a big deal IMO. People know what they are referring to. That's all that matters in that sort of language, humans are smart enough to figure out context and intention. Especially since there's nothing inherently 'wrong' with using relevant identifiers like geography.
Trying to constantly redefine and re-purpose certain words/phrases in absolute terms is an arbitrary and endless fight against the reality of everyday language. It's ultimately a giant waste of time that only adds more personal/political/ideological baggage than it removes, to what common-sense was already more than sufficient to handle. It's also just as often used to 'spin' and attack people and purposefully misinterpret people's intentions and context of usage, despite it being obvious to the rational reader, as it is about 'protecting' others. It then makes us question your intentions in 'correcting' them as much as theirs in using it, and we're no better off in terms of clarity. The less of it, the better.
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-...
Imagine if the Chinese army could materialize new media realities.
One can object to a use of language that is likely to stir racist sentiment against Chinese people, and more broadly Asian people (as we very much have seen especially early in the outbreak), without implying support for the CCP.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Google Translated:
> 4. It is not allowed to promote the "Global Service" function in the game. If there is any, you should go offline and delete the relevant function in time;
Not sure how accurate the source is or how accurate the translation is. The word Promote is in there, so maybe it's related to marketing (including box art, etc)?
Are all those racist too?
MERS - Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome - Saudi Arabia - not racist
German Measles - not racist
Japanese Virus - not racist
West Nile Virus - not racist
Japanese Encephalitis - not racist
Guinea Worm - not racist
Ebola - not racist
Zika Virus - not racist
Rock Mountain Fever - not racist
Lymes Disease - not racist
Russian Flu - not racist
Delhi Belly - not racist
Chinese Virus - RACIST?
Wuhan Virus - RACIST?
All are named after a geographic location—cities, forests, rivers, countries. Even inside China, it's refereed to as the Wuhan Pneumonia.
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2015/naming-new-d...
"Terms that should be avoided in disease names include geographic locations (e.g. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Spanish Flu, Rift Valley fever), people’s names (e.g. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Chagas disease), species of animal or food (e.g. swine flu, bird flu, monkey pox), cultural, population, industry or occupational references (e.g. legionnaires), and terms that incite undue fear (e.g. unknown, fatal, epidemic)."
Tedros also tried to get Robert Mugabe as WHO's goodwill ambassador:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41702662
Something will be the breaking point for this level of restriction/overreach in the name of surveillance.
It would be hilarious if it were zombies or map editing/mods.
It's amazing that Joshua Wang's actions have resulted in the game being made unavailable for an entire nation. Banning the entire game is also an incredible example of the streisand effect.
Nothing will be the breaking point short of political revolution. The CCP has gladly murdered its' own citizens by the thousands before and they will gladly do so again to maintain power. That's how authoritarian regimes work. Combined with the fact that they are powerful enough geopolitically that no other nation will do anything about it, China is set on its' dystopian nightmare future.
That may be happening now via the virus. China's case count is still around 80k, where it has been since the virus started taking off elsewhere.
Millions died in Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and then again later in his "Cultural Revolution". Not only did he lead the country through two periods of extreme death and famine, but also he is still an icon to many in China. Xi could very well do the same thing.
Many of the Chinese economic growth and development stats are fudged or are often unconsidered unreliable. I don't know why people think they'd be any more truthful about a case count.
Wuhan does have a reputation of being the #1 source of Chinese punk bands tho.
Personally I think it's a little unlikely at the moment because of China's surveillance state and generally rising standards of living in China over the last couple decades, but FWIW the Syrian Civil War was started over graffiti.
I abhor the fact that people are protesting the stay-at-home order en masse in some states, but I believe that they're looking at it from the same perspective as me. I feel it was a failure of their education to not understand the issue, and that they're doing the rational thing if they believe they're being forced into authoritarianism. I also believe they're doing the rational thing since we have very little social support system for many of those people, but that's beside the point.
If the government made all guns illegal and said "we haven't gotten rid of all guns from the streets, you must stay home or risk being shot by rogue gunmen, with a fine of $1000 for leaving home", I would also be protesting in the same way as those people today.
I can't speak for other countries, but people in the U.S. are very opposed to being told what to do, especially by their government. Most are okay with it in a pinch for a short while, but I don't think any sort of authoritarianism is going to fly in the U.S. long term.
Their policy must be to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it
If anything, I believe this will be used to create more anger towards the democracy movement in Hong Kong. Blaming these restrictions on them because they are endangering “national security”.
I remember when PUBG got “banned” in China, there wasn’t any real backlash against it. People are still playing it, although only against Chinese players.
Ever since WWII, with Marxist scholars observing that Nazi states don't receive the unrest (to them: class struggle) that we'd otherwise expect it to have, they've strongly suspected that cultural hegemony goes a long way to preventing unrest.
This comes especially into relevance when you consider that the CCP is in a position of cultural hegemony with respect to its citizens to an extent that free societies simply aren't.
The more China is able to prevent its people from accessing actually trustable institutions, the stronger its citizens obedience to it.
You say Streisand effect, but this is very greatly weakened when the state controls the most powerful communication platforms, and have suppressed communication media that it doesn't control.
The culture is so fundamentally different that it's almost impossible to understand. Sure, there's a "westernized" minority, especially in Hong Kong, but they're ~irrelevant.
Unfortunately a lot of this attitude comes from the Chinese themselves when we see the knee-jerk reaction to any criticism of China with "you just don't understand China". Maybe so, but this attitude is not helpful. Though I definitely understand that reaction when I think about how I would feel if some foreigners started criticising my country.
I think there are 2 important things I'd like people to take away.
1) You are not your government, especially when they are not elected. Criticism of a country's government != criticism of that country's people.
2) The people doing the criticising should take more care to specify the target of the criticism, and to understand the collateral damage it may have.
Or leave for somewhere else more amenable to ones quality of life on the ground and/or wait for things to deteriorate sufficiently enough such that people want to change things. Or a host of other things people could do in any given environment besides voting.
And just to be clear, I'm not judging who's better or worse.
I'm against this tendency of implicitly assuming democracy to be undeniably good; you risk assuming bad faith from people who genuinely believe otherwise. It is also kind of off-putting to assume a superior default position by virtue of having a democratic system. Especially now, when it invites so many easy attacks - the quality of western leadership, the handling of covid-19, etc.
Taiwan became a democracy because because the people of Taiwan asked for it and the regime at the time, the Kuomintang, wished to seek democratic legitimacy in response to these demands. Since then, Taiwan has grown to become one of the most socially liberal societies in Asia.
Covid has been, like 9/11 to us, a great way to introduce police state measure in a lot of countries.
Root cause: Confucius and his teachings.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
China to ban online gaming with, chatting in-game with foreigners outside Great Firewall.
Right now the title is very misleading and I was concerned that even on WeChat I wouldn't be able to talk to my Chinese friends.
Very brave of you.
And sure, no reason not to use it, as long as you're 100% certain you're never going to utter anything on the platform that isn't 100% aligned with the CCP party line.
And we're not talking about spies here, we're talking about a centralized, tyrannical government building a detailed personality profile of you to make sure you are and will remain a well behaved sheep.
Google "chinese social score" if you want to know more.
Also they'd be more nuanced now. They will likely ask/force Nintendo to crackdown than doing it themselves..
There won't be any better source. China will never publish these measures as laws or regulations, not in clear text nor formally acknowledge such "ban"h exists. It's an obscure code of conduct to extort companies in private sectors for "bad behaviour".
And yes it will be arbitrary enforced, the "ban" will differ from time to time and varies between provinces.
Taiwan's/other externals' reporting on happenings there are as close as you get to real journalism in China.
Reporting via various foreign news outlets should also be taken with a grain of salt since they cannot get the full truth without endangering their presence. Three reputable newspapers were recently kicked out of the country.
What's really going on in China is guesswork to a greater degree than elsewhere. The communist party prefers it this way.
It can't be denied that there is much misinformation/mistranslation/misunderstanding regards news from China from such unreliable sources. That calls for a nuanced analysis, that is sorely lacking in debating China related topics here.
I don't want to justify China, but the Wall Street Journal reporter who was ejected from Wuhan was overtly hostile, even cynical in their coverage, when the situation called for nuance. Also China officially has claimed the ejection of 3 US reporters a counter measure to the restrictions US has placed on Xinhua and People's Daily in operating in the US soil.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22885689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22886182
We get it, 1940s there's mass slaughter, 1980s crazy things happened when there's a nutjob in charge. It's a country with 5000 years of history and 1.4 billion people each with life stories living and thriving, and a govt having bag of problems just like everywhere else. But, to some people, like youtube/github/stackoverflow still not enough to tell me I'm less of a human being, my family my friends and our beloved dog are being 'slaughtered',
serisouly Animal Crossing?
https://youtu.be/xN0vUlljX0I?t=120
Source: voicechats on csgo
They lag hard and they seem to hack and use cheats at higher percentages than non Chinese. There are lots of movements to segregate Chinese players onto their own servers in games like DotA 2 and Cs:go. The CCP decided that the people who spam the copypasta about how bad the CCP is were actually making an impact.
China literally got trolled out of video games - but it's because they trolled the world first. Reap what you sow...
Its a lot of 'fun' to play 4 v 12. Trust me. </s>
As bad as it sounds I am glad they will be kept out by their own government.