Did you miss the part where it could be activated remotely, and was modified remotely in an attempt to conceal its nature as a political tool? As we've seen with the US, governments will do anything they think they can get away with. Making it known that even the tiniest millimetric step in this direction with not be tolerated is extremely important as the West's tech landscape is occupied more and more by Chinese devices, Chinese software, and Chinese algorithms.

Updating any smart phone to the same functionality over the air would be trivial though.

So if you were the Chinese government wanting to stop those phrases being used at some time in the future, it would make more sense to send the list at the time you activate the list, rather than in advance to be found before it's ever been activated.

It seems more provocative than anything else.

It's tempting to assume incompetence but I'll go with the following: they might be testing the waters and check if the Western society is vigilant and reacting to their actions.

I read that differently: the list on the phone itself wasn’t modified, but the lithuanian report about it, presumably under pressure from china.

Hundreds of generic "naughty" words were added to the list remotely by Xiaomi in order to make the list seem like it wasn't intended as a political tool, then Xiaomi remotely deleted it from the phone.

Seems I was wrong. Sorry. This defies the imagination!

“They reacted,” Margiris Abukevicius, Lithuania’s vice minister for defense, told me.

It seems like you misunderstood, that statement from the Abukevicius clearly states it was Xiaomi who changed the list (and then removed it).

You don't care about the censorship and oppression of 1/5 of the world population by the CCCP?

Doesn't that make _you_ the anti-chinese one here?

Nope because I'm not arrogant enough to think that the Chinese people are oppressed just because they don't live by your values. I have actually lived in China, and regardless of wherever anyone stood on politics, they were unified by one thing, they had no interest in being governed by foreign rule ever again.

> they were unified by one thing, they had no interest in being governed by foreign rule ever again.

This has absolutely _nothing_ to do with what I wrote.

I have no idea why you'd even make this comment?

Oppressed 1/5 of world population is on track to become high income country and highest GDP?

Exactly this. This idealistic discussion is leading nowhere, still, my 2 cents. I experienced this opinion when speaking to people who never lived there or even spoke with people from there.

In fact people there are fully aware of the censorship and either ignore it, find easy ways around it or even mock it and make fun of it: from creating the globally famous "Winnie the Pooh" synonym to memes that are shared.

If I had to pick between free speech and higher income, I'll pick free speech.

Given that "free speech" is nonexistent even in the West (or in the case of the US: quickly dying because of new Puritanism), many would answer that question differently.

    Food first, then morality.
    -- Berthold Brecht

That translation is ambiguous. He said Fressen. Which means eating like an animal, or to gorge/guzzle. So not simply having enough food.

Better having full tummy and empty mind rather than the other way around.

Unless the religion one follows condemns you to an afterlife of suffering for the actions you took to have a full tummy.

If they’re a commie (atheist) they don’t believe in an afterlife anyway, so there isn’t really any accountability in the mind of such a person if they can get away with whatever they do in this life.

> commie (atheist)

I am a capitalist-as-it-gets atheist. How dare you equate me to a communist! Belief in gods has nothing to do with belief in politicians' ability to manage the economy.

I didn’t equate atheists to commies.

Let me rephrase that: All commies are atheists but all atheists are not commies.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

> If they’re a commie (atheist) they don’t believe in an afterlife anyway, so there isn’t really any accountability in the mind of such a person if they can get away with whatever they do in this life.

Unlike the religious people who believe, that they can sin as much as they want to, just as long as they repent, and then still go to heaven?

Tell me you haven’t read the Bible without telling me…

Not relevant.

What Christians believe, doesn't necessarily have anything to with what the Bible says.

Even when it does, then it's often cherry picked.

That's the dumbest thing I've read all day. I'd rather starve than suffer fat idiots thanks.

Don’t take the ”highest GDP” statement at face value. It’s not only a lie (the US still has the highest GDP), GDP also doesn’t account for economic imbalances. Much of the Chinese population are living in poverty.

Chinese shills will claim that poverty has been eliminated, but that’s only true if you lower the poverty line. You could set the poverty line to 10 USD/year if you wanted to and by doing so “solve poverty”.

There is much room for misinformation and lies when it comes to these issues. One has to stay vigilant.

To be fair the GDP per capita in-balance in the US is also horrible from a western standpoint.

This doesn’t take away from the fact that he was outright lying when he said China that has the highest GDP.

That's why I said on track.

> Oppressed 1/5 of world population is on track to become high income country and highest GDP?

Those things have _nothing_ to do with each other.

The US southern states got very rich on cotton, tobacco, etc., and had a high GDP, during slavery.

Were the slaves not oppressed?

Again, GDP has nothing to do with being oppressed or not.

You remember that our government is spying on the entire world with active military bases located all around the world... right?

China just hasn’t yet gotten the chance to commit as many atrocities abroad yet, which is something that it’s currently threatening to do. South China Sea, Taiwan, the occupation of Hong Kong, Silk road initiative, Predatory lending to African despots, Chinese naval base in Africa, China eating away at the Indian border, and the list goes on.

The only one of these that is credible in my opinion is the Indian border issue which I have little understanding of. My understanding of the B&R initiative is that while there are terms that are not always good for the debtor, they are far superior to IMF/World Bank loans that destroy the target nation's economic foundation by requiring privatization and reduction of labor protections. I don't know exactly what you mean by despots.

Taiwan is debatable, but I see it as a regional dispute over an artifact of the civil war. Honk Kong I am suspicious of as the protests seem to be supported by the CIA and are pro-capitalist. The B&R initiative, building economic infrastructure to support the region, is a good thing, I don't see how that's an issue.

> You remember that our government is spying on the entire world with active military bases located all around the world... right?

No, MY country's government isn't doing anything like that.

I guess you're talking about the actions of the US government, which I have not condoned.

So this is "whataboutism".

I find it funny, that nobody here's able to defend the CCP, without resorting to that.

My phone is not secure. It is not the device I trust. I don't trust Google, I don't trust the US to somehow collect data and I don't trust the Chinese neither.

Thing is no websites or banks trust ME if I don't have a kinda recent mobile phone with Googeld Android or OSX.

And it's fine for Chinese people to get their speech censored?

To be fair that is none of our business.

Every government decided these things by themselves.

Cool. So by your logic, USA should not impose its view of "modern" "democracy" to other countries. Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, or even Iran.

Why does USA care if Iran assaults its citizens for whatever reason?

No, it should not. The USA imposing "democracy" by dropping bombs on civilians is part of the reason the region is unstable.

Unironically agree. Haven't we forgot the morbid situation in contemporary Libya? Along with buyer's remorse on Arab Spring?

gaddafi was removed from office and killed for refusing to trade in US dollar instead of his demand for physical gold. yeah

This is the kind of stupid, racist mindset that has allowed the majority of world governments to be corrupt and abusive. All monopolies need extreme measures to not suck as much, and the Chinese gov being shitty to their citizens will lower your own leverage against your government. (It’s not like the authoritarian trend is not already visibly global.)

When human rights are denied anywhere, it is the business of people everywhere.

States exist to protect human rights and states that don’t have no right to exist.

Human rights are made up. What might be considered a human right to you may not be considered a human right to the Chinese government.

You should be more open minded that different people and cultures have different values.

Wow...

Do you think women shouldn't have rights too, if a country's government doesn't think they are worthy?

That we shouldn't care about the treatment of migrant workers in the Middle East?

Apartheid was fine? Slavery?

I mean, as long as the country's government thinks so, and the "cultural values are different".

It's honestly disheartening to read a comment such as yours here.

Please read my comment in context to what I was responding to. The person who I was responding to said essentially "If a government doesn't follow my values it should be dissolved."

Wow... GP said that human rights are made up and not that he thinks that people shouldn't have any rights, made up or not.

>You should be more open minded that different people and cultures have different values.

So I can start owning slaves, if I claim it fits my values? Or I need to gather some minimal number of fellow slave owners, so I can declare it 'culture'?

That is a more extreme example so by it will make what I say sound more extreme.

>So I can start owning slaves, if I claim it fits my values?

Keep in mind that owning a slave is illegal in many places. Laws are also shaped by culture. So if you moved somewhere were slaves were legal then yes you could.

> Human rights are made up

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read on HN.

It's a human idea and a human invention, developed in a certain historical context. Calling it "made up" is pejorative, for sure, but not at all wrong.

It isn't like the Hubble Deep Field has a pattern that spells out "all human beings are born free and equal" or something.

I agree with GP that human rights are made up but would love to hear why and how you think they aren't. That would be a far better read than this pointless post that doesn't contribute anything to discussion.

If you asked me what human rights I have I couldn't tell you. Do I pick stuff from the bill of rights, do I pick stuff from my religion? How do I know what rights I have?

Did you write that?! great turn of phrase though in my brain i needed a comma to place pause, even if not technically correct (lol)

I did. An advantage of Toastmasters is that you start to learn to craft such phrases because they make excellent point in speeches.

A disadvantage is that you put in commas and -- for pause, not for correct grammar.

Nice! I am a big fan of the emphasis comma ;)

They can do whatever they want because...?

I think that the US played World Police enough already.

American power lead to a reduction in wars believe it or not. There would have been a lot more death and destruction, even with the mistakes America has made, than had there been this current inward looking naval gazing America. When Chinese power controls the world you’ll realise just how good we all had it.

You are confusing something. Are you talking about the country that started nearly any war in the recent past, failed to win or loose it and just stretched it out for years while killing thousands of civils for the good? The same country that somehow managed to break the Geneva convention regularly, especially with things like Guantanamo and have no excuse at all? All in the name of spreading democracy, something they not manage to actually implement themselves?

From my POV America is the one country we need to be most afraid of. Mostly because their irrational, war driven, and human rights ignoring behaviour all around the world. Not just in their country

I agree with you but why not fear both the USA and China? :D

Not like there's only threat in the world.

Wat?

America starting lots of wars save the world from lots more wars because China (which has started 0 wars) will start many more wars?

That’s some serious mental gymnastics.

Not really, I think China would have invaded Taiwan at least by now and would be threatening Japan and South Korea but for American power in the region. Why do you think there’s been peace in Europe for so long?

Because NATO and the EU.

Well if the US hadn’t have got involved at all. There probably wouldn’t be a communist China, and Taiwan would be threatening to invade mainland Japan.

But everything you say is just massive speculation…

As a matter of fact, I think so too! But my question is about why do all governments, including the US gov, have the right to do that to their citizens?

So what? USA can punish CCP by boycott it, crash its economy and HOPE that Chinese People will overthrown CCP.

Guess who will suffer the most, yes the Chinese people

And you westerners celebrate “freedom of speech” without paying any cost.

Really, stay away from our internal business. USA has a tracked record of screwing things up by imposing democracy prematurely

The main problem is that there's a self-governing, democratic nation of 23 million people nearby that the CCP regularly threatens to invade. We've grown rather fond of those people and do a lot of mutually beneficial trade with them.

As long as the CCP threatens other nations, it isn't "internal business".

The ROC(Taiwan)/PRC(China) issue is so much more complicated than "CCP regularly threatens to invade".

When did CCP threaten to invade? I guaranteed you all those countries benefit a lot more from a healthy China

You are speaking for all mainland Chinese? Ok, well, let me speak for all Australians affected negatively by the b/s extra 'taxes'/trade restrictions/etc put in place by the Chinese government... because they didn't like some things that were said about them?

The OP is speaking for all the Chinese people in the first place

The USA? Who cares? I'm just speaking out about a civil liberty and you assume that I represent the whole government that uses that liberty as an excuse to play politics. Unlike the CCP members (or their wannabes) I don't base my identity and beliefs around my government and what it does.

You are not the real owner of the country - regardless of what illusion you have. Your government is not either. The big Corp and capital is the REAL owner and they grab you by the balls.

>So what? USA can punish CCP by boycott it,

>Really, stay away from our internal business

Staying away from your business is literally what a boycott is.