Text Messages in China to Be Scanned for ‘Illegal Content’

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/technology/20text.html

by wallflower • 17 years ago

17 15 17 years ago

coderdude3• 17 years ago

This may be an ignorant question, but there are over a billion Chinese people, so what does it take to get those people to revolt against their hyper-oppressive government?

raganwald• 17 years ago

Dissatisfaction with becoming the next great economic superpower.

coderdude3• 17 years ago

Yeah but that's like wanting to become the world's richest man even though you know you'll never get to spend the money, and rather more likely be tortured or something.

Husafan• 17 years ago

For the rest of the world to stop aiding and abetting them becoming the next great economic superpower based on principled reasons.

potatolicious2• 17 years ago

The separation of the Chinese racial identity with that of its government - most Chinese perceive the government as representative of their ethnicity, and despite whatever flaws must be protected against malicious foreign interests.

So basically, the more posturing the West does, the more aggressively the Chinese will side with their government. Suffice to say, current foreign policy exacerbates this.

No outside force can possibly get the Chinese to revolt - in fact any outside force is likely to do the exact opposite, and help cement the Communist regime's power. Most new-generation Chinese are happy to give up freedoms they've never known how to enjoy, in exchange for the chance to escape poverty and live a better life.

So, the only way to get the Chinese people to revolt against their government is for the economy to stagnate, and for people to no longer perceive a worthy "trade" of their freedoms for economic progress. As soon as the people lose hope of a better life, support for the regime will crumble quickly.

Speaking as a Chinese, anyhow.

coderdude3• 17 years ago

Thanks, that clarifies my question for the most part. So it's like a V for Vendetta thing, except they all think they're going to live the good life one day.

papersmith3• 17 years ago

China may be oppressive compared to developed countries, but if you look at where it came from, at its current state it's probably the least oppressive government it's ever had.

Historically revolts were fought by peasants over high taxes that left them starving. Now-a-days the issue is the lack of private land ownership, and the government is already implementing land reform for this specific reason. Corruption is still rampant, but people are generally kept well-fed. People will only shed blood if their livelihood is on the line, usually abstract reasons such as freedom of speech alone is not enough, these things usually only change gradually from within.

tokenadult• 17 years ago

at its current state it's probably the least oppressive government it's ever had.

That's a commonly made statement, and I don't claim to have a basis for definitively disagreeing with that statement. But I have heard some historians claim that many of the regions of China had better governance in the 1930s (some under "warlords," and some under the KMT central government) than China has had at any time under the PRC regime. That would be an interesting historical question, and probably depends on which forms of "oppression" one counts and which subgroups of the population are most regarded in the analysis.

Even as I knew Taiwan in early 1982 when I first arrived there, when Taiwan was still a one-party Leninist dictatorship that practiced censorship and even political assassination, it was a less oppressive place than China is today, in my personal view of what is oppressive and what is not and who is most oppressed.

yread• 17 years ago

Is it such a big deal? I for one definitely think that messages here are scanned for illegal content and nobody tells us.

humbledrone• 17 years ago

If you don't think that it's a big deal, would you mind giving me full access to your private email address? I promise your email will only be read by a program I wrote. Well, I mean, if my program sees certain words (sorry, I can't tell you which ones specifically), I will read through your whole email history personally. That's OK, though; you don't have anything to hide, right?

og1• 17 years ago

I know there are probably cultural differences in what content people send in their texts in China, but I still have the feeling that they are going to get overwhelmed with the amount of text messages that alert their system.

Text Messages in China to Be Scanned for ‘Illegal Content’

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