Re:China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs
by chub500 on Friday August 28, 2020 @10:58AM
(#24305663)
There's a big difference between government censorship and internet company censorship. Both are problematic but other than that they aren't in the same league.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_...
Re:China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs
by banmeagaindan2 on Friday August 28, 2020 @05:24PM
(#24310138)
Why a difference? Internet company censorship is at scale and often works to further censorship by other organizations - some of them are even governments.
Ignoring governments - who can have valid political and strategic reasons to be censors - the social media censorship is more serious because it is operating at the social layer - all those capillaries. Social consensus enforcement touches more people in everyday life.
It is difficult for anybody to stand for their values in these conditions. China does not pretend to be a politically free society - but I believe I'd have a better shot freely talking about Western politics on a Chinese service than an American internet service today.
People with my opinions are not a threat to the CCP - so I would be left alone. The number of times I've been banned for speaking simple opinions that just don't conform to the consensus of the hour is more than I can count. All from American web services. Even Sam Altman - who owns some of those services has said the same. It's the synchronization that is causing all the overreactions and underreactions to events.