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85% of Chinese Citizens Like Internet Censorship
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed May 14, 2008 10:40 AM
from the well-nevermind-then dept.
from the well-nevermind-then dept.
cynagh0st writes "A Pew Internet & American Life Project report indicates that of an overwhelming majority of Chinese people that believed the Internet should be 'managed or controlled,' 85% want the government to do this managing. This is resulting from surveys on Internet use over the last seven years in China. 'The survey findings discussed here, drawn from a broad-based sample of urban Chinese Internet users and non-users alike, indicate a degree of comfort and even approval of the notion that the government authorities should control and manage the content available on the Internet.' The report goes further into describing the divide in perspective between China and Western Nations on the matter and discusses the PRC's justifications for Internet control."
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Your Rights Online: With Olympics Over, China Re-Censors Internet 242 comments
eldavojohn writes "We last left the story of Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China when the IOC had reached a deal with the Chinese government whereby some of the press restrictions were lifted. With the 2008 Olympics now but a memory, China has began censoring foreign news sources again. Maybe the West is making too big of a deal over this, as many Chinese citizens seem to like it that way."
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the other 15% (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the other 15% (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what they were asked because the Chinese government did not approve of the question. They were asked if they approved of government control. The two are very different, especially in a socialist state where the government controls everything.
Parent
Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:4, Interesting)
(shrug)
The Founders always said that "democracy is are worst disease", the masses were not competant enough to run the government, and therefore we should have a Republic run by educated men. i.e. People with enough common sense to realize scrapping the first amendment is a bad idea.
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Informative)
Do you mind sourcing that? The closest I'm able to find is that "74% would prevent public school students from wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that might offend others." Source [firstamendmentcenter.org] I've no doubt that many people have very different views than me on what the first amendment guarantees, but I honestly doubt your figure, particularly considering the other data on the same site.
On the subject of the article, I must say that I'm rather skeptical. It's possible that Chinese citizens really do appreciate censorship by such an overwhelming majority, but I am reminded of this article [npr.org], particularly the line "Having lived in a society where millions were arrested for speaking inadvertently to informers, many older people are extremely wary of talking to researchers wielding microphones (devices associated with the KGB)." This was last December, mind you, more than a decade after the fall of the USSR.
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, there's a big difference between disagreeing with the First Amendment, and believing certain clothes shouldn't be allowed in public schools attended by minors. If you want to wear an offensive t-shirt, you can do it all you want at home, or walking on public streets or public parks etc. Public schools aren't free-speech zones. The attendees are minors, and don't have the same rights and privileges as adults. They can't decide not to go to class, or to sit outside class with signs and protest. If they don't have the right to even decide if they want to go or not, they certainly don't have any inherent rights to wear offensive t-shirts, or say offensive things (such as in the middle of class when the teacher is talking). Even public university students don't have that right.
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since only Congress may pass laws which have any influence, and since Congress is forbidden to stifle free speech according to the First Amendment, the government has no authority in limiting what a person says. Just remember the old adage "actions speak louder than words" and you'll realize that stifling free speech is only a method of controlling how a person thinks. I think the idea of murder is quite undesirable, but I should be free to talk about the mass slaughter of lawyers all I want.
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, if that wild mustang gets all the food it can eat, has owners that groom it regularly and let it have free run of the ranch, then why should it want a life without horseshoes?
Westerners, and especially Americans, seem to have a really difficult time understanding other cultures, and specifically cultures where authority is still trusted to do the right thing. You saw in the news just over the past few weeks how shocked we seem to have been by the fact that Chinese citizens actually came out to protest in favor of their government on the issue of Tibet as it relates to the Olympic torch relay - the tone of the news reports was "what's wrong with these people?" Well, there's nothing wrong with them. Under their present government, the vast majority of Chinese live in peace, their economy is growing at 8-10% per year, they're about to host the most prestigious sporting event in the world, etc. etc. Beyond those abstracts, personal wealth is at levels never before seen in China.
Why shouldn't they trust the government? The government seems to have done pretty well for them - unlike our "democratically elected" government that can barely manage 1-2% growth, gets us involved in unnecessary foreign wars and has presided over a doubling of gas prices and foreclosures in the last year. Given warrantless wiretapping, detention without trial of "enemy combatants", the movement towards prison sentences (even life sentences) for copyright violations, not to mention the Patriot Act, I would argue that we really don't have a hell of a lot more freedom than they do either. Yeah, so they've got an internet firewall. But my bet is they don't have stormtroopers knocking down their doors if they say the words "ammonium nitrate" over the phone and it gets flagged as a keyword in some NSA remote listening database.
Which side is more "brainwashed"?
We've simply learned to distrust government based on how non-functional and even harmful our own is. Well, theirs (like most of the world's) actually works pretty well for the vast majority of the country, so they've learned the opposite lesson.
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you know how many civil rights violations that happen in China every day? Do you know how many people have been forced out of their homes because the government wanted a new office complex? Do you know how many people are shuttled away to prison (or to their deaths) for saying the wrong thing in public, or for a petty crime?
The Chinese can trust their government to do one thing: Fuck it's citizens.
Huge populations of Chinese live in poverty. No chance for reparation either - because they don't vote, they have no say in their government..
Don't even say "works for the vast majority" of the Chinese. It fucking doesn't. Just because a few protesters were out there doesn't mean the Chinese love their system.
The problem is, too many of them know no different, and the Government makes sure it stays that way.
Just because something is different doesn't mean I have to accept it. "Western" governments are BETTER, and I have no problem saying that.
Parent
Re:Unless they are older than 65... (Score:5, Interesting)
China has always been a dictatorship. Even the so-called "nationalist government" was little better than a congregation of power-grubbing warlords. Democracy in Taiwan only works because it's so small. And that's where things are different from the US. Chinese prefer one ruler over multiple regional warlords. Because if history is any indication, multiple rulers means war and strife. And that has happened so many times in the past that the peaceful periods in between the wars are more than welcome. Democracy brings about instability. It is, by its very nature, unstable. It is undesirable, and the reason why the populace fled to the communists in the 30's and 40's. Communism promised stability.
Besides, democracy doesn't exist in Chinese thought. Confucian values dominate, and Confucious was very strict on following the hierarchy of the faily (grandparents, parents, older siblings, self, younger siblings, children, grandchildren, etc.). This comes from the still-living tradition of ancestral worship, and makes absolute sense in that framework. Democracy has no place in this ideology.
Parent
Re:the other 15% (Score:5, Insightful)
That is kinda like asking Americans if they think terrorism should be fought, and if so should it be done by the US DoD.
It's a loaded question designed to get a specific answer from a select group.
Parent
Re:the other 15% (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:makes perfect sense (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:the other 15% (Score:5, Informative)
Hardly. China has 1.5 million [homeoffice.gov.uk] people in jail, only 0.1% of the population. The United States, by comparison, has 2.3 million [washingtonpost.com] people in jail, or 0.8% of the population. That's about eight times more, so let's not have the pot calling the kettle black.
Parent
Re:the other 15% (Score:5, Funny)
That's the news according to the Ministry of Love. However the Ministry of Truth has decided that in this case, 85% is the same as 100%. Therefore hence forth, all news needs to be written as 100% of Chinese Likes Censorship.
Your failure to recognise this has been reported to the Thought Police, and room 101 is being prepared for your arrival.
Parent
Re:BAD MOD (insightful) (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFY. Everyone in Gitmo is an innocent man according to our laws.
Parent
Re:BAD MOD (insightful) (Score:5, Interesting)
"illegal combatants" is an arbitrarily defined term invented by the very government that does the jailing for it. Likewise, "terrorist organization" is an arbitrary term that doesn't even have an official definition. I'm pretty sure I know at least one reason why: It would be awfully hard to find a definition that would not include the CIA, Mossad or other "friendly services".
So in summary, arbitray foreign people are sent to Gitmo for arbitrary reasons. That's slightly better than for speaking out against the government, but only very slightly, and only because of the "foreign" in there.
Parent
There's a very good joke in here.. (Score:5, Funny)
Look! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Look! (Score:5, Interesting)
A report about the reliability of it's own references? This report would have to be taken with a block of salt.
Parent
Before you cast stones... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's easy to think, "Wow, that's crazy," but then, an atheist doesn't stand a chance in hell of being President of the United States of America [nytimes.com]. (Pun only slightly intended.) I think that's pretty stupid.
Not saying one's better or worse than the other, just that no country has a monopoly on stupid citizens.
Parent
Real News (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Real News (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Real News (Score:5, Informative)
Every culture and language has "lean" words, words that have special significance and emotionally potent. In America, those words include, "freedom", "liberty", "justice", "dream", and "oppression". Here, people have great fear of "oppression", and words and concepts like that.
In the Chinese culture, the individual's greatest fear isn't "oppression". It is "luan", or "anarchy", "disorder". The Chinese people in general will tolerate a great deal of "oppression" so long as the government is doing its job: keeping the nation from running into chaos. "Human rights" in China doesn't include the right to be free; instead, it includes the right to be live a peaceful life.
-Q
Parent
42.5% of statistics (Score:5, Funny)
Accurate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not always where you live (Score:5, Insightful)
Take voting in the DNC primary, by all accounts and polls one candidate should be getting even more votes than they are getting yet once behind the privacy of the voting booth they don't get them.
Some questions make people uncomfortable whether their freedom is in jeopardy or not. It is also instinctive in some people to give the answer that they believe the questioner wants regardless if its a true one.
While I do agree China is a special case I have seen friends answer complete strangers in what I knew wasn't what they believed but instead what they wanted the questioner to believe.
Parent
I'm sure (Score:5, Funny)
*Ministry of Statistics Motto:We're here to make sure you're happy about your statistics.
Shocking~ (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm shocked I tells ya, shocked~
Re:Shocking~ (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean people that spend all their life being managed and controlled want the internet to be managed and controlled?
This is one manifestation of a larger question: how realistic is it to assume that a society that is quickly growing richer wants to rock the boat that has raised their living conditions? It always seemed naive to assume that a richer China would necessarily demand more freedoms. When you consider the effort and sacrifices required to overcome the odds in securing a middle class lifestyle in China today it seems preposterous to assume that these very same people are somehow going to form the vanguard demanding change. Most of these people aren't going to give up their comfortable high rises or prized automobiles for anything or anyone. This may change in time but that time is a long ways away.
Parent
Skewed results (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Afraid to answer anything "anonymously" as they know better.
2. Afraid to answer anything other than what they think the State wants them to say (see #1).
3. Are so ingrained in the sheep mentality that they just don't know any better.
4. Are just like Americans and don't really care but don't lie about it.
Re:Skewed results (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if we're not looking at this with cultural filters, though. It could well be that the Chinese have a mindset that makes government control work where it has failed in the West.
Parent
Re:Skewed results (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
If you gave the same survey in the US or UK... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it might me much higher than most Slashdotters would believe.
Re:If you gave the same survey in the US or UK... (Score:5, Funny)
As for the current government judging if people like the amount of control in their lives, they don't need to do any surveys. They just look at all the CCTV cameras and say "Well, most people are smiling so we can assume they like what we're doing."
Parent
A simple solution... Test question, maybe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Question 2. Do you want us to have the power to know what you buy online, what your daughter looks like in a bikini, and read the email you sent to your working-away-from-home husband (Paul) with that photo of you(?) in the black and scarlet red corset (and not much else)?
If you answered differently to both of those questions, your opinion is not valid for this survey.
Parent
It isn't skewed voting... its skewed teaching. (Score:5, Insightful)
so... what about children raised in a red china communism 'I love the government' household?
To add to that problem, how can 85% of chinese vote for an option they've never experienced - if they are living 'well' enough, by their standards, and don't know differently, then why would they change?
Hmm, (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone wants the government to be their censorship tool. The government will happily censor stuff. It's just various groups want different things censored and want to be allowed to view their chosen content.
Unless it's a unanimous 100%, (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no majority large enough that stripping even one person of their rights against their will is justified.
Issues. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even on Liberal anti-censorship slashdot. Oposing view points are often quickly modded down just because people don't want agree with it or beleave it to be true. While it is not censorship in true sience of the word, it is a way for the moderators to say Hey I don't want people reading this, and if they do I don't want them to think it is a valad argument.
People are humans and humans feel threntoned by different ideas then their own, it doesn't matter if you have just a GED or a PHD you will feel threantoned by different ideas. When people feel threntoned they will try to move to higher powers to prevent the threat.
Modding is not censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. Stop this. Seriously. This gets regularly trotted out by people who have no concept of what censorship actually is. Do you know who actually does the "censoring" in Slashdot? You do. You, by setting your preferences to filter out comments under a certain threshold, you remove someone's ability to be read. As a result, you're the censor on slashdot. Not CowboyNeal, not the moderators, but you - and you alone. So stop blaming others for your actions.
Not to mention that telling others that an opinion is worthless is not the same as censoring. Sometimes, I wish people would spend some time in a country that actually does censor speech, so that they understand the difference. Censoring speech: someone breaks your fingers or throws you in the slammer for propagating illegal/unwanted opinions. Moderating: a mark that tells others "Warning - stupid person talking."
Normally, confusing the two is a sign that the person is 13 and hasn't gotten to political science in high school yet, but that'd make your UID too low. I can only assume you're just confused.
I also have no idea how you managed to misspell "threatened" like that.
Parent
Is it really that big of a divide? (Score:5, Insightful)
How different are we? (Score:5, Insightful)
Including child pornography, illegal material, the anarchist cookbook, DeCSS, Nazi propaganda sites, etc?
The level of censorship in China is obviously leaps and bounds beyond anything else in the world, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. but I think that people overestimate the meaning of free speech to the average citizen. As long as it doesn't bother them, most people don't have any problems whatsoever when extremists, deviants, weirdos, and the like are censored, as long as it doesn't directly concern them and the stuff they're interested.
The majority of people in China are not interested in politics, both traditionally, and because it's been a bad idea to be involved in politics for the last 50 years. So if they don't read Dalai Lama's speeches, Japanese version of history, or Germany's take on political freedom in China, they don't particularly care, as they're not interested in it in the first place.
Even here, people clap happily as the FBI and similar agencies in Europe freely read our emails, search our computers, confiscate hardware, all in the name of counter-terrorism. Make a Pew poll in Europe and let's see how many average people have a problem with this?
The situation in China is obviously far worse, but instead of patting ourselves on the back and going on about evil Chinese and how much better we are, it would be wise to draw some parallels.
I do not believe polls from communist countries (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the report. (Score:5, Insightful)
Guo said that the explanation for this increase probably lies in the spate of widely publicized incidents of fraud, blackmail, sensationalism, and other abuse of Chinese citizens via the internet. The Chinese word used for "politics" in this survey, zhengzhi, is not confined simply to political rights or competition for political control but may be understood to include larger questions of public morality and social values.
Pretty damn interesting, actually.
The question defines the answer (Score:5, Interesting)
So: "do you beleive in free speech?" 99% of the respondents say yes (1% don't know)
Or: "Should the internet be regulated, to protect your children?" .. now we're getting into interesting territory - I'd be willing to bet that most parents of 18 or less year-olds would say yes.
How about: "Should the ISPs do more to reduce pornography on the internet?"
Try this: "Is it reasonable for your employer to restrict your net surfing?"
Finally: "Do you think the government should protect internet users from violent or inappropriate content?"
Now tell me: which one of these questions defines censorship? The answer will depend on your individual outlook and where you live, whether you're responsible for other people. The final point about censorship is that no matter what your personal opinion of it is, you don't have the right to impose your view on others. Even if they're in favour of it and you think you know better.
Re:Censor child porn, please (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent