China Employs Campus Internet Overseers 337
d'alz writes "China's Internet police, reportedly including as many as 50,000 state agents, have monitored the Chinese citizenry's online habits. They have blocked Web sites, erased commentary and arrested people for what is deemed anti-Party, or anti-social, speech. Several hours each week Hu Yingying, a college student, goes to a little-known on-campus office crammed with computers. There she logs on, unsuspected by other students, to help police her university's Internet forum." From the article: "Under the Civilized Internet initiative, service providers and other companies have been urged to purge their servers of offensive content, ranging from pornography to anything that smacks of overt political criticism or dissent. The Chinese authorities say that more than two million supposedly 'unhealthy' images have already been deleted under this campaign by various mainland Internet service providers, and more than six hundred supposedly 'unhealthy' Internet forums were shut down. These deletions are presented as voluntary acts of corporate civic virtue, but have a coercive aspect to them, because no company would likely risk being singled out as a laggard."
Chilling (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA: So she's a professional astroturfer [wikipedia.org] as well as an informant.
Some more: 'Sterilize' the Internet would be more appropriate.
And finally: Ji Xiaoyn, please report to your local Party official for reeducation.
Ah, who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
The U.S. has more than just an addiction to oil - there's an addiction to cheap products too and before long our dependance will have us bowing to the Chairman too.
Re:Ah, who cares? (Score:2)
I make it a point to never buy products made in China (and a few other countries). It can be difficult but not impossible. The only exception
Re:Ah, who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Americans, generally speaking, don't care anything about where/how products are made so long as they are cheap. Joe User doesn't care if his $40
Re:Ah, who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than that, it's "I've got mine, therefore I'm better than you. Greed is good, selfishness is next to Godliness. So fuck you."
Re:Ah, who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chilling (Score:2)
You know they would if given a chance (Score:2)
Re:Chilling (Score:2)
The "Great Firewall" is for real. (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the recent ink on Google, is anyone suprised here?
What essentially is happening in China is a 21st Century version of the Cultural Revolution - an electronic purging, if you will, of any "impure" expression among the populace.
You only get one guess as to who decides what "impure" is... or is not.
Interesting (but not at all a shock) that students are recruited to rat out their peers. There must be a big-time carrot being held out to rise up high within Party ranks.
Re:The "Great Firewall" is for real. (Score:2)
The carrot being to not vanish and end up in a Chineese re-education prison?
Re:The "Great Firewall" is for real. (Score:2)
(Caption on screen: 'HM GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE FILM NO. 42 PARA 6. "HOW NOT TO BE VANISH AND END UP IN A CHINEESE REEDUCATION PRISON"')
Now I am going to ask him to speak up. Mr. Bradshaw will you speak up please
(To chineese censors enter and removes Mr. Bradshaw)
Voice Over: This demonstrates the value of not speaking up.
Re:The "Great Firewall" is for real. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm... [msn.com] Something about cleaning one's own house comes to mind.
FTL: Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants. Emphasis mine
Re:The "Great Firewall" is for real. (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, those defense officials yelled, "LOBBYIST!", and when Congress looked the other way, they slipped the provision in the bill.
Man, if somebody posted a comment like Isikoff's here (which, incidentally, is almost two years old!),
BTW, the provision (Secti
Re:The "Great Firewall" is for real. (Score:2, Flamebait)
you have got to be kidding me (Score:5, Insightful)
The Politically Correct movement is about speech against speech. Those who hold certain political views against what they consider social ills, such as: Racism, Sexism, Political and/or Wealth Inequality, blah blah blah. A litany of left of center views. Welcome to life in a Democratic Republic where free speech is -- supposedly -- valued.
Contrast this with China under Mao. Where, at the zenith of Mao's power, people were expected to believe that he could utter no incorrect statement. That he would live for ten thousand years. That he was sacred, essentially a religious prophet (who preached against religion -- he was a Communist after all). Anyone who spoke even slightly against Mao, by suggesting that he was just a person, a human who could make mistakes like anyone else, they risked being grabbed by party officials and dragged to the center of town. There they would be charged with "Capitalist Thought" and forced to "Self-Criticize" in front of their townsfolk. They would have to recite a litany of their crimes against Mao and the Party. And if they were lucky they would simply be stripped of their job, their children would be removed from school, and their supply of "Rice Coupons" (food) cut to nothing. Then their local citizenship would papers would be destroyed and they would be sent to live with peasants in a twenty-seven thousand person commune. Where they would likely starve.
If, on the other hand, they did not properly repent, they would have a heavy stone sign with the words "Capitalist Criminal" engraved upon it, hung from their necks with piano wire. They would be forced to sit on their knees in the center of town and wait while for days while the sign, so heavy that the piano wire would cut through their necks to the vertebrae, slowly killed them. If they were lucky they might repent and beg forgiveness. Whereupon an executioner would put a rifle bullet in the back of their head. And then charge the family a fee for the bullet and service. No shit.
I'm sorry, but campus political correctness in the US doesn't even come close to the suffering the Chinese have had to endure.
This is a pretty bad analogy (Score:5, Informative)
But Mao wanted his power back. So, he encouraged students to form a "Red Guard" paramilitary group to rid China of the Four Olds (old customs; old culture; old habits; old ideas). To do this they were given free reign to interrogate those old members of society who were in power -- for those who were in power were, by definition, corrupt because they were not equally sharing their gains. The students then took these old leaders and "struggled" against them through violent means, until the person either admitted his crimes or died while refusing.
Ratting on other students to stifle dissent was not the intent of the Cultural Revolution, though other students who had been children of former landlords, or whose parents had been caught up in the anti-rightist movement during the Great Leap Forward were fair game for "struggle" sessions as well. Mao's principle goal was to unseat Deng Xio Peng and Liu Shaoqui, which he did when students successfully stormed the presidential compound and took both into custody in 1968. Liu Shaoqui died shortly thereafter in prison, while Deng Xio Peng weathered the storm and eventually retook the reigns of power some time after Mao's death. As the Cultural Revolution neared its zenith, street fighting broke out among various factions of Red Guards, who each fought to proclaim their greater loyalty to Mao. In this manner outright civil war broke out between student groups broke out, with automatic weapons and artillery fire destroying entire city blocks and killing numerous civilians, until Mao released the army to re-take control of city streets by force. And then the Cultural Revolution was over, and a bunch of Red Guard students were executed for treason. And, of course, Mao was the Great Leader controlling the reigns of power once again.
It is in this context that one can view the 1989 Tiananmen Square repression, as Deng Xio Peng was leader at the time. If you remember, that was a student led revolt against the political leadership ostensibly in support of democratic reforms. However, Deng Xio Peng was most certainly frightened by the breakdown in law and order of the Cultural Revolution and likely thought he was acting to stop a repeat of the Cultural Revolution. Not that the violent repression at Tiananmen Square was an appropriate response, it's just that most people here in the west viewed it as a violent repression of democratic values, when it is more likely that Deng Xio Peng thought he was preventing yet another student led civil war that he had seen during the late 1960s.
Take us forward another sixteen to seventeen years (nearly another generation) and one can see that the context of cultural and political repression common in China today is far less bloody than prior generations. It is still repressive. It still relies on "self-criticism" in order to enforce the social norms of imposed groupthink. But the current leadership is, perhaps, a bit less violent in its repression of dissent.
Unless you're Falun Gong. Who make an excellent source of fresh organs for transplantation to the buying public. But, hey, that's just a matter of collecting hard currency by killing and selling the body parts of religious kooks. It's not political like Internet Censorship. *cough!*
It all happens here too! (Score:2, Insightful)
They're called Intellectual Property Lawyers.
Funny how everyone (mainstream soceity atleast) thinks it is so evil when other cultures impose their values, but completely OK when we impose ours.
Re:It all happens here too! (Score:2)
Re:It all happens here too! (Score:2)
Re:It all happens here too! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. They're called slashdotters; bringing unsuspecting websites to their knees daily.
Re:It all happens here too! (Score:2)
Yeah, and we here at Slashdot so often express our love and admiration for those fine men and women who help protect our poor defenseless billionaire corporate executives' bonuses. Golly, you've certainly hit on a glaring hypocrisy there!
Funny how everyone (mainstream soceity atleast) thinks it is so evil when other cultures impose their values, but completely O
Re:It all happens here too! (Score:2)
"The IP lawyers don't play nice to your face then run off "to a little-known on-campus office crammed with computers" to rat out their friends."
This is pretty much exactly what the RIAA has proposed with their idea of having IP enforcement officers on College campuses. It is alrea
Well said. (Score:2)
Well said. Nice to see a post without the usual hypocracy. I guess you are in minority
Impossible! (Score:4, Funny)
The Party Line (Score:4, Insightful)
Although most of its students know nothing of the university's Internet monitoring efforts, the leaders of Shanghai Normal conducted seminars last week for dozens of other Chinese universities and education officials on how to emulate their success in taming the Web.
University officials turned away a foreign reporter, however, making clear that the university does not wish to publicize its activities more broadly. "Our system is not very mature, and since we've just started operating it, there's not much to say about it," said Li Ximeng, deputy director of the university propaganda department. "Our system is not open for media, and we don't want to have it appear in the news or be publicized."
Because then someone might find out, although I doubt anyone in China would find out since it would no doubt be blocked by censors. The fact is, it's just an extension of their internal spy network, adding one more data source to allow the Chinese goverment to keep tabs on its citizens and purge "unwanted ideas." This is just astounding, especially in a country with such a large population. But I guess when you keep the rural poor in ignorance, you can pretty much run the country any way you please, even though they outnumber you. China was such a fascinating and interesting place two or three thousand years ago, but now it's taken the concept of "insular" to a new extreme.
For her part, Hu beams with pride over her contribution toward building what the government calls a "harmonious society."
Read: dissent will not be tolerated.
Re:The Party Line... (Score:2)
Do you know this?:
"China has between 100-160 cities with populations of 1 million or more (America by contrast has **9**, while Eastern and Western Europe combined have 36.)."
[emphasis my own]
Did you know that in the past 20 years:
"Estimates of the number of people who have left for teh cities to find work range from 90 to 300 million, numbers that even near the low
Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:3, Interesting)
So what are they doing right? We can sit back and bask in our freedoms, but as we can see from our current situation, we will languish economically. Is the rate of growth of China's economy sustainable and is there anything we can learn from them in regards to our own economy?
Everything else is a red herring. Anyone that tells you the most important problem with China is its lack of civil rights is either ignoring their economic threat or is purposely leading you away from that topic. One or two hundred people locked up for no reason or a handful of "bad images" are just a blip on the radar compared to the damage they will be able to inflict against us if they ever gain the economic upper hand.
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:2)
I personally believe that instead of the West exporting democracy to China, we will end up importing their "dynamic, productive new social paradigms", and gradually our free societies will become dictatorships as well. Perhaps democracy was only a temporary blip on
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:4, Informative)
The ancient Greeks thought so. [wikipedia.org] Or at least they thought that humanity would continually rotate in and out of tyranny.
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:3, Insightful)
A single party state is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship, albiet one in which the dictator is no longer a single figurehead, but rather a single organisation, in this case the communist party. Voting in China is only a cynical rubber stamp on a rigged process.
The citizens of China obey the laws that the government enacted, but without the complicity of the citizens, the government its
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some would say the same about the US.
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy to be successful when you aren't worried about labor costs.
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:2)
I advise you seeing the 'Getting Rich' segment of the 'China Rises' [www.cbc.ca] documentary from the CBC.
It might recall you what rural exodus was in Europe and America some decades ago. It's the same.
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:2)
People like to talk about Chinese slave labor, and it is true that they do use prison labor (by the way, so does the U.S.), but that is not, in any way shape or form represent a significant amount of their labor force.
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:2)
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:2)
Do not confuse a free market with a free society. China is growing economically, yes, but they are getting lots of investment from foreign capital. The Chinese leaders seem to be smarter than other communist leaders, they threw out the marxist economic system, but kept the police state.
China's economy is growing very fast mostly because it has so much to grow. For the majo
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:2)
China these days isn't communistic at all, it's very free market. And they try to keep the country together and the Party in charge by brutally suppressing any unwelcome ideas. The two are perfectly compatible.
What they have on you is that a huge proportion of their population is still poor, so a job paying very low wages is a step up. The US is being outcompeted on price by just about the entire other 95% of the world, but especially by China, since they're also quite competent.
Plus the currencies are sk
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:2)
If we have anything to learn from China, it is that free markets (or free-er markets, at least) work.
Re:Economic success is possible under communism? (Score:3, Interesting)
What makes you think China is communist? Sure, they talk about socialism, but capitalism is widespread. There are "special economic regions" like Shenzhen and Shanghai with their own stock exchanges. E
In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Informative)
In Soviet Russia (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, sounds like Soviet Russia was a lot like Kinkos.
In Mother China.... (Score:2)
A little story about India that relates to this (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that countries don't have rights, traditions and cultures don't have rights either, but individuals do. While everyone talks about respect for Chineese culture and Chineese traditions, they often seem to ignore how these same Chineese nationals adjust to the freedom in neighboring HK in a matter of days. It is not Chineese culture that is unable to adjust, it is China's communist government. I is not US expectations that are being judgemental and rash, it is the Chineese government. It is not only OK to help Chineese people find freedom and liberty, it is our duty as indivduals irrespective of US policy.
Re:A little story about India that relates to this (Score:2)
But your example uses an act commonly considered as criminal (murder). It is even more dubious than the "why if the Dutch tried to help the Americans import drugs ?" argument.
Thank you for evoking the HK case. One thing you forgot is that the economic, cultural, education situation is much different there. A full fledged democracy is a stable system there. In China, it is not yet. Nobody in China will tell you that they wouldn't like democracy once the i
Re:A little story about India that relates to this (Score:2)
Chineese? (Score:2, Funny)
Okay sorry but that just irrated the hell out of me, especially after seeing it 6 times. I'll go back to being Mr. Non-Spell-Checker-Person now.
Re:A little story about India that relates to this (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me guess, an American who wonders why foreigners want their little countries protected from being trampled by the global capitalist Jihad, and thinks the "American Way" is all about individualism and "Fuck t3h n4nny state!!" Well, maybe you should realize that the documents you seem to worship as protecting your "inalianable rights" were written in order to create a new government, sepa
Re:A little story about India that relates to this (Score:2)
Well, "freedom" in HK versus "freedom" in the rest of China is certainly a relative thing.
A man sleeping in a cardboard box may be the envy of the man sleeping under a newspaper, but I wouldn't want to be in either situation.
-h-
Re:A little story about India that relates to this (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude....
The U.S. government is operating secretive prisons in Eastern Europe and not so secretively in Guantanamo where they are holding people without charge or trail, and apparently in many cases engaged in low grade or maybe even high grade torture.
The U.S. government has one of the largest per capita prison populations in the world. I think some place like Rwanda was number 1 in
Re:A little story about India that relates to this (Score:2)
not the point I got (Score:2)
The West does nothing more than complain about the woeful state of individual rights in China because they are not in a position to do anything about it. China can make or break most Western economies, and has a significant military as well. If our way of life is truly so wonderful then
Re:A little story about India that relates to this (Score:2, Insightful)
Treason (Score:5, Insightful)
But it doesn't matter. When the revolution comes, the people whos necks have been stamped on one too many times won't be too sympathetic and Ms Hu and her ilk are going to get their heads blown clean off, and I have no sympathy whatsoever . I condemn capital punishment, but when you've sold your fellow human beings up the bloody river as you skip joyfully about the heels of tyrants, I'm not exactly going to weep at your passing.
People like this are essentially traitors. They betray their countrymen by colluding with the illigitimate power currently in control. Treason is a weighty offense, and doing it by pointing and clicking doesn't make it any less grave.
Re:Treason (Score:4, Insightful)
I for one, would not like to be Ms Hu Yingying when the revolution comes...
In all fairness, she will probably be killed or tortured by the corrupt government she is faithfull to long before she is killed by revolution. Tyrinannical governments have a tendency of doing this. When Stalin took power, the first thing he did was kill all his frends and allies to consolitate his rule. When the Chineese "land reform" led to the disasterous death of millions, the first thing they did was round up and arrest and torture all the teachers who were teaching the goodness of communisim and the goodness of the Chineese leadership. Ironically, the farmers who nearly revolted and forced a return of the private property system were not punished at all, but rewarded.
That is why US people, US companies, and the US government should be very weary about cooperating on any issue that involves taking away freedom from the Chineese people. The goose that has laid the golden egg in China is not the Chineese government, but the Chineese people inspite of the government. When we cooperate with the Chineese authorities, we cut off our nose inspite of our face.
Re:Treason (Score:2)
... ?
So... Okay, if I read this right... We're cutting off the goose's nose despite of our face-off with the government... ours or theirs... because the Chinese people are laying golden eggs?
It's no wonder western governments are falling over themselves to appease the Agatean Empire [wikipedia.org]-
Re:Treason (Score:2)
When the revolution comes... (Score:2)
...the only difference will be the faces around the big conference table, and the reasons they give for imposing their will on the people.
All that will happen is that the cycle will start over again with someone else as the oppressor, and someone else as the oppressed. That's why it's called a revolution; everything comes around again.
"Mandate of Heaven" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Treason (Score:2)
Oh, come on. If she is unlucky and gets caught in the first year of the new regime, sure. After that, she could just continue in her line of work: as an informer for the new government's secret police. Being an ideologue is not a job requirement for an informer. A lack of morals is.
Re:Treason (Score:2)
The problem is that often these regimes have the top educated or trained people working directly or indirectly for them, such that getting rid of them would entail crippling the country. I seem to recall that in the U.S. after the civil war, you did not round up former slave owners or confederate officers, because doing so would have set the south back
Re:Treason (Score:2)
Get over it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Get over it (Score:4, Insightful)
So Nazi Germany could make laws saying Jews were not people and subject to extermination, and that's all right? Being a sovereign nation, they had the right. So the only justification we had for toppling the Nazi regime was their invasion of other sovereign nations; if Hitler had never invaded another country, we should/could have done nothing about it?
I admit, I'd have a hard time if another country tried to make policy here in the US, but wait, don't they? OPEC raises prices and suddenly our government has to drill in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. The Taliban government of Afghanistan decides to house Osama Bin Laden and the result is the destruction of the World Trade Center and the start of the war on terror. The Soviet Union launches Sputnik and the US lands men on the Moon. Perhaps these aren't the intentional acts of one nation trying to run another, but their consequences are the same -- one nations alters its behavior because of the effect of what another nation does. And that alteration doesn't have to be destructive, that's just usually the most common occurrence.
And so China may indeed do what it likes, but that isn't going to stop those of us on the outside from trying to influence what's going on inside China.
Re:Get over it (Score:2)
Even if that wasn't the case, I don't really care about a government's "rights" next to those of actual people.
Re:Get over it (Score:2)
The "cat" is out of the bag (Score:3, Insightful)
She's nothing but a Chinese Capo (Score:5, Informative)
Hu Yingying is nothing but a Chinese capo. She works to ensure the continued oppression of her own people in the hope of being given special treatment. If freedom ever does come to the middle kingdom, you can rest assured that she and others like her will be just as reviled as the Capos of the holocaust are today. Whether or not she'll be hanged is uncertain, but one can hope.
Lee
Can you say hyperbole? (Score:2)
Re:Can you say hyperbole? (Score:5, Informative)
You're right, it's not an accurate comparison at all--the Chinese communist party has killed far more people than the Nazis ever did.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We can't really criticism them though (Score:2)
Not saying I don't agree with you, but... The first amendment protects private citizens from having laws passed by Co
Sure we can (Score:2)
Second, most US universities are private. Receiving funding from government doesn't make them state agencies.
I felt the need to say this... (Score:5, Interesting)
----
Now, I personally don't believe any of that. Not to troll, but to everyone posting about how the US is just like the PRC on censorship - read the above again. I can say that. All I want. Without fear of retribution from the government. I can talk about socialism, communism, monarchy, even anarchy. I can even encourage them - peacefully, of course. People in China can't even DISCUSS democracy, period.
We censor things here because they threaten monetary income; ignoble, I'll admit, but we don't jail you just for criticizing the government. People of the free world, first recognize what you have, and others have not. That's the first step to freedom for those who don't have it.
Re:I felt the need to say this... (Score:2)
Re:I felt the need to say this... (Score:2)
Re:I felt the need to say this... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to tell you some basic knowledge:
1) people in China DO DISCUSS democracy in everywhere. The full
Re:I felt the need to say this... (Score:2)
From what I understand, they give roughly the same reason for censorship there, only introducing more indirection. What they say is that stable government is good for business, therefore, censorship of anti-government propaganda is good for business.
Also, as pointed out already, "democracy" is not a taboo word in China, or, for that matter, in any Communist country, present or past. Keep in mind that they all claim themselves to be democratic.
Chinese Banking System Meltdown (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,208
Re:Chinese Banking System Meltdown (Score:2)
The dramatic rise in the strength of the yuan versus the dollar is going to dramatically shock the Chinese economy. Regardles
One World Government run by a-holes. (Score:2)
Setting up China as a totalitarian government while setting up the West as a 'free' society, (cough), and then flooding the news with lots of stories which get the blood pumping about the unfair differences between 'them' and 'us'. .
Well, can anybody name the next big enemy we're being set up to fear and loath?
Sheesh.
Big Authority is a bunch of A-holes.
-FL
Wake up you self righteous bastards (Score:2, Interesting)
The spanish (or chinese, or american) inquisition (Score:2)
corporate civic virtue?? (Score:2)
At least the facade has been dropped. Can we finally stop calling China "Communist", and call it what it is. Corporatocracy.
Soviet Russia joke...sort of (Score:2)
Re:China vs. the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the U.S. if content the government dislikes is printed or spoken by a journalist who chooses to do so, they don't end up sentenced to forced labor, or worse, end up with their family billed for the price of the bullet used to execute them.
I'd say there's more of a difference than you think.
Re:China vs. the U.S. of A. (Score:2)
Re:China vs. the U.S. of A. (Score:2)
I'm willing to believe you that the US is a shining beacon of freedom for journalists, but the situation is less rosy for editorial cartoonists [newsday.com]. For those of you who don't follow links, the story is about spending three years at Guantanamo for writing a satire. The US government didn't see any problem: a quote from the article is "Rob and the Defense Depar
Re:China vs. the U.S. of A. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:China vs. the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mainstream media censors news and entertainment in the US, but starting your own sidebar discussion about how corrupt politicians are or dumb the president is in a cafe won't get you arrested. The problem isn't the media - it's the people that think news is entertainment. If they abandoned shock based entertainnews, rating would falter and that would be that.
Heck, threatening the president only gets you an obligatory visit by his guards, you don't get beaten up and dissappeared. Heck, they probably agree that he's an idiot too - they get to hear his real stupidity.
Here run a test. Take the following quote:
"Every government official in [insert country your standing in here] should be run out of office on the backs of a mob and replaced with someone who isn't allowed to accept any money for their duties."
Have a chinese friend translate it for you and help you pronounce it correctly. Drive/fly to Washington, DC. Stand in front of the Capital building and shout this, repeatedly, until you're sure someone official looking hear you.
Now, fly to China and repeat this action in front of their government building in Chinese. Let us know the results when you get back home....
Re:China vs. the U.S. of A. (Score:2)
If you would have went 10 years in the past and told someone about the PATRIOT Act, illegal domestic surveillance, Valerie Plame, Iraq, and the increasing national debt (under a Republican government no less!), they'd have laughed at you and called you a nut.
Ten years from now, we might have to watch what we say about our dear leaders. It's not that far from where we are today.
Re:China vs. the U.S. of A. (Score:2)
If by "threatening the president" you mean holding a "No War for Oil" sign [economist.com], and if by "only gets you an obligatory visit by his guards" you mean arrest and prosecution even after 11 congresspeople signed a letter to the prosecutor saying "no plausible argument can be made that [the protestor] was threatening the president", then yes, you're right.
Re:1984 (Score:2)
Interesting to think of whether being allowed to Google Tiannenmen Square would influence them in one direction or the other.
Re:1984 (Score:2)
I would suspect that would never happen as a) most of the rural poor don't own computers and b) most have probably never heard of the masscre. The Chinese government was censoring things long before the Internet became popular.
Re:1984 (Score:2)
That's long been going on here with "policatically correct" speech. Don't like the way something's said, say "illegal immigrant?" Just call them "Undocumented Workers", technically correct, but leaving out that whole messy "illegal" part that kinda submarines the whole discussion.
There are a LOT more cases of this... that one is just one that's been in the news recently.
As for how long before the vast majority stand up and start protesting.... I think it'll be a long long t
Re:1984 (Score:2, Interesting)
You mention 1984, remember the proles in the story? Winston was an exception to the nor
Re:1984 (Score:2)
It's a tough balance but so far China
Re:I have to complain this (Score:2)
In China, everything what we discuss on Slashdot is censored. You can't say democracy, because then Hu Jintao will send his thugs and fuck you in the ass. Yep, that is how China works. I saw it on Fox News.
Re:My Employer ... (Score:2)
And why are you still working there? Holy sh*t, I'd be outta there ASAP.
Re:Still, where theres a will, theres a way... (Score:2)