Sounds like paranoia to me, but besides tough talk, which a four years old can do as well, where is the proof?
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New York Times App Removed From App Store in China
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Sounds like paranoia to me, but besides tough talk, which a four years old can do as well, where is the proof?
Most people in China are content about their situation, mainly because the central government have been able to improve life for most people and especially the poorest. At the same time they keep a serious grip on controlling dissidents. It is not hard to find articles about people who just "disappears" or suddenly are under investigation for corruption or similar. Apart from the pollution and if you are able to avoid politics, especially anything criticizing the government, you can have a pretty good life there.
Unless Apple prevents new users registering Apple ID without any payment method, that removal means nothing to Chinese customers still willing to download that app.
Plus, there will emerge a new type of service downloading apps in a foreign App Store, in Taobao. Uh, is that market called Taobao?
Plus, there will emerge a new type of service downloading apps in a foreign App Store, in Taobao. Uh, is that market called Taobao?
Yep. Pretty much this is everyone's main goal. And I am pretty sure they are fully aware of all of such limitations and censorship. What I am not sure is, whether they have the guts to fight for freedom of speech.
However, I doubt USA has the "freedom of speech" as they brag over multiple decades. Perhaps they are under even stricter censorship than what China does. Chinese tend to showcase their achievements broadly, unlike people in other countries. So we all know China has a so-called GFW, but knows little about Prism plan before Wikileaks leaking those confidential documents.
I feel the same way. It sucks we have so many brainwashed (braindead?) little Marxists and SJWs running around trying to get our country as censored as China. "I'm offended by your correct term 'illegal immigrant', so I'm going to censor it and call you racist" and all their little safe-space tactics over the years to censor reality.
NYT, HuffPo, WashPo (especially), ABC, CNN, NBC, CBS, even Fox (not as bad as the rest because of Carlson and Hannity) are all sellers of fake news. Ironic that leftist-viewpoint-only NYT got called on their crap and censored in China. Taste of their own tactics.
I've rarely read so much BS in one singular post.
You haven't read many of his posts, he can go on for multiple paragraphs like that.
There is no "suppression" of free speech going on - because there's nothing to suppress: in China they don't really have the notion of free speech in the same way Americans have. There is no First Amendment in the Chinese constitution.
It's a different system - and a different culture, concerned with the state's well-being before the individual since at least Confucianism.
I'm not sure I buy the notion that it makes that big a difference to the ordinary citizen, though, compared to countries where there is theoretical free speech but the airwaves and newspapers are entirely controlled by media moguls by sheer brute force.
What I find more concerning is how the whole "walled garden" model (App Store, but also Facebook and the like, as opposed to the idea of a free web) makes any sort of censorship easier.
In principle, while I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Kim Jong-Un, I wouldn't find it any better if the North Korean's party newspaper was removed from the US App Store.
(Except that it probably doesn't have crosswords as good as the NYT).
I think that Marxism and the SJW movement have very little in common, to the point of being diametrally opposed - starting from the fact that the SJW thing is essentially an upper-middle class thing started by middle-class Liberal Arts majors 2 centuries after Marx.
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I don't really pay heed to the idea that free speech as a concept was invented by some random country amending its constitution.
In fact it was "invented" shortly after the printing press and popularized by Illuminist thinkers.
However, it's not a given - in fact, historically it's been a given in a minority of countries for an historically brief period of time.
In Medieval Europe or present day North Korea it wasn't and isn't a tenet of society.
I agree, but I don't think the US' 1st amendment claims it did (if that's what you are referring to?). It specifies that the government may not make any law "abridging the freedom of speech", which indicated it is protecting a pre-existing concept rather than inventing it. Incidentally I would say they have contradicted this, but I guess that is another issue for another thread...
Personally I think freedom of speech is, and has always been (since we could physically speak), an inalienable human right, whether (or to what degree) governments choose to impinge upon it or not. Who or what 'invented' the concept of free speech is more a theological and/or evolutionary debate than a modern historical one in my view!
Having said all that, I must admit that I think there are a very small category of certain restrictions that I would agree should be placed upon what people are allowed to say without state/legal interference - things that I think most people would agree with banning, such as making statements which are an incitement to violence, or slanderous and defamatory comments.
But even then, I think humans still have the human (if not legal or moral or ethical) right to say what they want, even if they are aware of the social/legal consequences that will befall them. Importantly, that differs from true, outright censorship where technological means are used by one actor (e.g. a government) to physically stop free speech from another occurring, because that's essentially an intentional curtailment to freedom of thought as well, which is arguably even more insidious.
Question: what does this exactly mean, in practice?
It's an actual question, I don't know what's the definition used in political science.
Does this mean that it's there, somewhere, floating around in North Korea, even if the law makes no prescriptions in this sense?
If it is, how is the DPRK different from the US, since they both have "free speech" floating around in the air?
Was it an inalienable human right before the invention of the printing press?
I'm a bit wary of claiming something is an "inalienable human right" outside of discussions between political science majors, because... it gives us little to reason about and prompts more questions than it answers.
How about, instead, "freedom of speech is good"?
It enables us to conclude that it should be defended at all costs, which is something I strongly believe.
Yes, I personally believe that even in the most oppressive regimes where freedom of speech is limited to a relatively high degree compared to anywhere else every man, woman and child has the right to free to speech. It's one of the things referred to when people talk about poor human rights records (though certainly not the only thing of course).
If human rights are only rights when they're 'allowed' by a government, they're not really rights at all. They're ... I don't know, 'permissions' I guess!
We may be arguing over semantics here, but I think to merely say 'freedom of speech is good' it too weak a statement given its importance. To me, that sounds a little like 'it's good... but it's not that big a deal if it's not available'. It is a big deal. Freedom of speech is very good?
I think the DPRK is different to the US (and most of the West, and some other places too) in that freedom of speech in the US is specifically defended in the social contract of the state - it's part of the society's idea of what is acceptable for the state to interfere with. Where as in more restrictive societies it's less clear, or in some cases actively antagonistic towards people enjoying the right to free speech. The right is still there - but often it's impinged upon, banned, censored etc.
Think of other basic human rights. Are they always observed and left to flourish in complete freedom? Of course not. Sadly. It doesn't mean the right doesn't exist, it just means they are often abused or prevented from being expressed or enjoyed.
Was it an inalienable human right before the invention of the printing press? Yes, I think so. You'd be correct that the printing press certainly had a huge, transformational effect upon what one could do with free speech, but it didn't create the right to it, as I see it.
You could ask the same of writing on papyrus, or in the sand, or on the walls of a cave. That's all just technology that enables greater expression and dissemination of free speech, not the (as I see it) inalienable right itself. As long as humans have been able to speak, I believe we have had the right to do so. And I think that goes beyond what any government or society wants to proscribe or ban. It just so happens that people in power often have very logical reasons to want to stop it! Sometimes there are good reasons to, as I outlined in my last post, but I think the vast majority of the time there are not.
And I agree with you that throughout history it is not a right that has often been supported or even recognised through various civilisations and societies. But I still think it was there all along regardless.
You see, I never understood what is meant with the notion "basic human rights" that "just exist".
Actual question: what is a "right" if not something protected by the law?
The best answer I can imagine is "something that in your or my opinion the law should mandate", because "it's good for the people".
Not trying to put down your opinion, mind you - or mine, I have a high opinion of my opinion, - but... if you find yourself stranded on an island populated only by wildlife can you really claim that you have a "right to health"?
Can you invoke the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Will the chimpanzees listen?
I find it very important to highlight that human rights don't just exist in a vacuum, but are to be actively protected by any self-respecting, civilized nation and society.
Yes. That's a stronger statement, and thus not in contradiction with the former.
But this highlights another important issue: can you place a value on, say, freedom of speech vs. right to health?
Many countries where freedom of speech is limited have just recently discovered luxuries such as a sewer system and aspirin.
That's not by chance.
I'm not sure of this.
Freedom of speech is, after all, the idea of being able to express whatever you want to express without fear of retaliation - which sort of is not really the same thing as stuff you say in the privacy of your home or things you write on toilet walls.
It basically is about spreading ideas, which is made possible by the printing press - or a telephone cable.
On the above-mentioned desert island are you enjoying freedom of speech because nobody shoots you for saying whatever you please, or are you not enjoying it because you can't spread your ideas that much far anyway?
But this is getting very philosophical and irrelevant to the practical issue at hand - i.e. that this should probably concern Americans and Europeans as well, for reasons orthogonal to the situation in China.
Eh not really. Our situation in America is serious and Trump is going to make things only worse.
Say good bye to Net Neutrality, etc
Then you haven't been paying attention.
Having a corporate media that gets their marching orders from the globalists and the DNC (and has leaned that way for decades) is pretty bad. We don't have an independent media - they are a giant leftist circlejerk propaganda operation that's successfully brainwashed a lot of people. This last election cycle unrefutably exposed how biased the corporate media is.
Wikileaks revealed massive journalist collision with the DNC, a ton of corp media execs were found to have direct relationships to Clinton's team members, donations to the Clinton Foundation from reporters were never disclosed by very reporters before their political reporting, the leftist media put out constant BS polls with massive innaccuracies and bias favoring Clinton made to demoralize conservatives from voting, massive prediction bias all around (HuffPo and their 98% Hillary victory assurance, Newsweek with Madam President printings)... I could go on.
Our corporate media is no different from the communist Chinese media, getting their orders from the leftists in government and printing and pushing only news that reinforces their dogma.
Trump's net neutrality view may be a problem (unlike leftists on this forum, I don't fawn over my candidate 24/7 and make him immune to criticism), but it's a bigger problem that we have a Leftist-only media spewing their dogma as news and completely disenfranchising any opposing view all the time.
Reading some of your stuff, I can conclude you're an internet crackpot. But that's fine, people like you are entertaining. Especially right wing idiots.
Continue buying into leftist propaganda. Believe it all and question nothing. Be a "useful idiot".
I'm sort of confused.
As an European I don't follow the US media situation closely - what are you suggesting, exactly?