Tokyo University Used "Tiananmen Square" Keyword to Block Chinese Admissions

Re:Tokyo University Used "Tiananmen Square" Keyword to Block... by maxglute on Sunday December 08, 2024 @04:29AM (#42356081)

This is as OVERT as it gets, since you cannot hide keyword which can be trivially archived online, with no plausbile denialbility. If university wanted covert policy they would quietly just get registrar to reject PRC applicants and this story wouldn't even exist. Not to mention most PRC applicants with aspiration abroad run VPN anyways, especially now, if only to use chatGPT.

IMO this looks like the action of smooth brained rogue operator mad that PRC accounts for ~50% of Japanese international students, and thinks reddit style Tianamen copypasta would get a PRC netizen's computer to explode and get abducted by MSS, i.e. it's a hack job done by a racist idiot (of which there are many in JP). My understanding is University of Tokyo has one of the highest international enrollement, very PRC friendly as well from what I hear.

Quick search online it has 4968 international students, 3232 is PRC, or 65%, substantially higer than JP average, which is way more than I thought.

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Re:Tokyo University Used "Tiananmen Square" Keyword to Block... by maeil on Sunday December 08, 2024 @06:13AM (#42356487)

> especially now, if only to use chatGPT.

Aren't the Chinese models competitive?

> thinks reddit style Tianamen copypasta would get a PRC netizen's computer to explode and get abducted by MSS

Bit of a weird exaggeration. As the article states, it was likely simply to prevent them from applying, and to my knowledge this is indeed a successful way to do so as it does get the page to be blocked by the GFW, no?

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Re:Tokyo University Used "Tiananmen Square" Keyword to Block... by maxglute on Sunday December 08, 2024 @06:32AM (#42356551)

Many people use VPN and still use western models. Ditto for those looking to study abroad, the key point the audience we're dealing with, i.e. those who want to go abroad for school overlap with cohorts who will invariably have VPNs, so if a site doesn't work due to GFW, one falls back to using VPN anyway. Hence embedding senstive terms trying to get rid of PRC users who are used to leaping the wall (in this case literally) is stupid, like commenter posting copypastas in reddit or youtuber thinking it would kick PRC users when they were on VPN to skirt GFW filtering in first place.

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Re:Tokyo University Used "Tiananmen Square" Keyword to Block... by echoangle on Sunday December 08, 2024 @05:55AM (#42356424)

You don’t really have to hide it though, you can just plainly put it there and still have (at least some) plausible deniability. Just put a stupid „you might also like these blog posts:“ section in the footer and make a blog post about the keyword.

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Re:Tokyo University Used "Tiananmen Square" Keyword to Block... by maxglute on Sunday December 08, 2024 @06:16AM (#42356497)

It'd be pretty wierd to shoehorn 6/4 (not just Tiananmen) in a graduate enrollment website, and as I mentioned, PRC applying overseas will have VPN already, so it won't do anything.

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