China Detains Internet Users For Spreading Rumors 89
alphadogg writes "Chinese authorities have started to detain Internet users for allegedly spreading online rumors, in its latest measure to control the country's social media sites. China's State Internet Information Office said it determined several online Internet rumors were fabricated, and instructed relevant departments to prosecute the offenders, according to a Tuesday report from China's state-run press agency Xinhua. The so-called rumors include a case where a user spread alleged misinformation about income tax provisions by forging state documents. The user was detained for 15 days. In another case, a Chinese college student from the province of Yunnan was detained after spreading what the government called a rumor on blogs and forums, about an incident where a man killed eight officials in his village. The 'rumor' had said the man killed the officials because of pollution generated from a cement factory."
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The punishment for not sending it is far worse. Why, one woman in Ohio failed to send the letter and was later murdered in her sleep by a ghost.
Rumor (Score:2)
Be glad that you are not in China to be detained for this Rumor!
Really, there's a thin line between humor and rumor.
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Sadly as the world heats and as human attention is focused elsewhere there will reach a point at which the distinction will be irrelevant. Humans probably only have 100-300 years to do this to themselves and then their cooked.
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This would the ultimate irony if the Chinese spend the money they have made off of Americans by enslaving their citizens and paying their police and information ministers in an effort to do so. Let us hope that somewhere we can find wisdom.
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That's it. We'll send fortune cookies full of wisdom. Communist officials will soon recant their ways, hold hands and sing "Kum Ba Yah".
Just try to think of China as a REAL LARGE corporation, a business, with subsidiaries (Korea,N.Vietnam,etc.),stockholders( party members), management (authority figures) and flunky workers (Ten Jillion Chinese), then your perspective will make more sense every time you hear about their evil ways. It's for the profit, f**k the environment, the populace and any other country
One rumor (Score:4, Funny)
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I heard that was just a rumor that it was a rumor.
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or something like that.
Yo Dawg (Score:2)
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Sounds as if you now face two counts. Lets hope that as the Yuan rises and absorbs a greater and greater share of the World GDP that they won't use the money to invest in the US private prison industry. No doubt there are many on Wall Street, who are prepared to trade on the prospect of broad exchange of cultural values, to facilitate a Chinese entry into our markets. After all without rumor, you can't really run a business. One has to create a brand. Its important that we all understand what that will
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Look, mate, you could be detained for spreading a rumor like that.
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One rumor was that China would detain Internet users for spreading rumors.
An axiom, not a rumor, the tighter you hold onto something, the greater the chance of losing it.
It is better to hold something with an open hand.
Gasp! (Score:3, Funny)
irony (Score:1, Offtopic)
while in USA the more and more oppressive government managed to destroy free market, in China the free market is just maybe managing to destroy the totalitarian government.
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Actually, I'm pretty sure that despite the ravings of TV pundits, the US is more free than China will ever be, market included. Also, I'm pretty sure this story was about the government crushing dissent and winning, and not at all about free marking bringing down the government. Mods, put out that flame.
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Actually, I'm pretty sure that despite the ravings of TV pundits, the US is more free than China will ever be, market included.
You are wrong. You are wrong de-facto, as China attracts more and more investment capital and talent (the same way USA used to back in 19 and beginning of 20th centuries) and USA is losing it.
Why would you correlate increased corporate activity with more freedom? It seems to me that the opposite is true. Especially in China, where corporations willingly help the government impose their totalitarian policies.
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This is the problem with the slippery slope argument.
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Clearly, the solution is in the Jacobean matrix and its determinant.
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In USA, big business controls the government.
In China, the government controls big business.
Neither country has free market (if you look at the big picture), but USA is definitely way closer to it than China.
To get this in perspective, in China, economic crimes such as tax evasion or fraud, and even things that we would consider far less notable than that, can (and sometimes do) result in a death sentence. One recent case [economist.com].
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In USA the government usurped power from the people, created all sorts of unelected offices and departments, which created tens and hundreds of thousands of various rules and government uses these to make money by selling special privileges to avoid the rules.
In China government allows free market as long as there is no political competition and all of the investment capital and businesses came there and created all of these companies, built all of these factories and various infrastructures, and now this s
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Are you seriously saying that China is closer to the "libertarian paradise" than USA?
similar where USA was in 19 century and before 1913.
And that sure was a great place to live in, right?
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similar where USA was in 19 century and before 1913.
You can tell by this number that you are talking to a Federal Reserve hater, who thinks the worst thing in the American economy is the federal reserve.
But even if he's right about that, he's still wrong compared to China, because the market manipulations the Fed makes is small compared to the manipulations the Chinese government makes. It isn't without reason that people want to label them 'currency manipulators.'
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Or he could be referring to income taxes. There were all kinds of government expansions during that period. Even Prohibition, the start of the war on drugs, began not too long after. Whether you believe that laissez-faire is good or bad we lost any claim to it early in the 20th century.
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Everything. Federal reserve, income taxes, prohibition (because in reality income taxes and prohibition are closely related, as prior to income taxes introduction, 50% of gov't funding was coming from so called 'saloon tax' - alcohol sales.) You can thank the feminist anti-saloon movement for ensuring that gov't started with the income taxes as well, by the way.
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, 50% of gov't funding was coming from so called 'saloon tax'
Wow that sounds like such a free market. :/ Come on man, crony capitalism was huge before 1913. As a starting point, think of Boss Tweed. And that's just the surface.
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" created all sorts of unelected offices and departments"
So the government sets out to save from destruction the environment of the planet upon which we depend for survival for and yet create and manage energy resources that the economy functioning. You think that problem is going to be so simple that it won't require lots of administrators and their staffs to actually make happen, or are we to just let that last shred of the natural world that keeps our environment healthy from pathogens and the predation
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The government sets out to do what? Gov't doesn't do what you think it does, it doesn't at all do what you think it does and it doesn't at all have the ideals that you think it should.
Also no poor nation cares about its environment, when a nation is poor, the people in it are only concerned with what they will eat tomorrow, not how to make their environment more pleasant or clean, etc. It is absolutely necessary that the nation becomes very very wealth before it can ever start thinking about such secondary
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No, the person doesn't have to be smarter to be able to profit massively in a system that is basically designed to be corrupt.
The people who are in government are mostly massively incompetent in almost anything, but they are still competent at selling power, and in reality that's a product that's EASY TO SELL. They don't have to go and sell it :) Lobbyists come to them with the money, it's hard not to make massive amounts of money even if you are as dumb as a bush.
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Politicians also have to be connected, it's not easy to be elected in the first place, so there is something there, they are not the dumbest of the dumb.
But they also don't end up building profitable companies and they don't end up with hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, so they are clearly not as smart as many businessmen, but they are much lazier.
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Maybe everybody should be a politician then?
People actually do things not just because of money but because they like to create something. Businesses are always innovating in some ways, trying to make the work cheaper, make the product more attractive, find a way to get more of the market and set the right price. It is a lot of creative work.
AFAIC an average businessman millionaire is NOT paid enough for all the work they do, but an average politician is definitely overpaid, so I can't argue that they are
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Only if everybody can be equally smart
- oh, so if everybody was equally smart, then everybody would be a politician?
1. Nobody would be eating.
2. Not every smart person wants to be a politician, as I said - plenty of smart people are interested in things that they ultimately build businesses out of, but their interests may have been other than just making the most money. Maybe making the most money is only a consequence of an interesting hobby somebody has that he finds a way to monetize eventually.
More proof that politicians are smarter than businessmen.
- no it doesn't, not when you look at absolut
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They call it rumors... (Score:1, Offtopic)
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Indeed. At what point do interesting stories and allegory turn into rumor?
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When everyone is too fearful to say anything ever. At that point a stable equilibrium is reached given the total absence of communication of any kind. Civilization as we have known it will cease.
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I already do this for my server.
Sorry, China. Your people have no need to be accessing my resources, so they won't be.
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I already do this for my server.
Sorry, China. Your people have no need to be accessing my resources, so they won't be.
No problem, Capitalist. That's what proxies are for. There's always at least one, and that's all we need.
XOXOXO, China
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"But I think the Chinese government is opressive and overly controlling. Allegedly."
It's just a malicious rumor with no basis in fact. And we'll arrest anyone who says otherwise.
False rumor (Score:3)
Seriously, does anyone believe false rumors like this when the Chinese foreign ministry said that they "protect the freedom of expression of citizens in China," [itworld.com]?
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The only difference between defamation/ libel and false reporting, is that a false report doesn't really target anyone (so no 'victim' per se beyond the public trust).
IMO, news reports should be held to the same generic standard of verifiability as a direct accusation. This crap where Fox news gets Legal protection to make up any garbage they want as long as it doesn't defame anyone, and 'report' it like it's real, is a scourge on the name of the press.
The same should apply to any type of high profile blog
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You're right, that never happens anywhere else in the credible, accepted mass media.
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Fox News, your televised tabloid!
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Seriously, does anyone believe false rumors like this when the Chinese foreign ministry said that they "protect the freedom of expression of citizens in China," [itworld.com]?
We have always been a war with Eastasia.
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More or less like that, yes.
The second and the third Soviet constitutions (of 1936 and of 1977 respectively) indeed guarantees - among of other rights and freedoms - the freedom of speech, the freedom of press, the freedom of assembly and the right to protest. I haven't found anything about condemnations of the preventers there, but then again I only scanned quickly over the text.
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Nope.
Hell, be a member of the Nazi Party? No problem.
Ditto the Klan. Or the Communist Party.
Say what you like about whomever...
Unless you threaten them, of course. That's getting into criminal areas. Secret Service will visit if you threaten the Pres, at least till they decide you're a harmless net-troll....
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Heck, you don't have to get that exotic. All these groups have merged into the republican party, especially the Stalnist goon agitators determined to use state authority to control the will of the American people to freely assemble and state their grievances.
Not "user" you asshole. (Score:2)
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I don't believe that you are a human, you are an AI troll.
That's right, you all heard me right here, on /. This is not a rumor, this is true. Please make sure everybody knows.
--
Do I win the Internets?
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I see a problem here. Your statement implies that intelligence is compatible with troll when it clearly is not.
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Who is number 1?!
You are number 6.
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Lies! Slander! (Score:3)
The Chinese government did NOT arrest anybody, nor is there a limit on free speech in China! This is a lie and a completely unfounded rumor, and you are in violation of China's non-existent free speech laws. Please stand by for questioning; you will be collected.
On a serious, note (Score:2)
1. The concept that you can attribute blog posts to an individual, since it is not merely obvious but assured that they posted it, no matter what it is, if their identity is on it, well, that's an interesting concept. And naive.
2. Since identity is so difficult to be sure on on the Internet, we'll be seeing Chinese government accusations and wondering if they just fabricated the rumor postings to justify imprisonment. Yeah, I just wrote that.
3. And since Internet in China is entirely open and unfettered b
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Time to start paying more attention to who you vote for. And to start educating them about technology and how it should be used and not abused. But I'm afraid it's already too late.
When has it NEVER been time to do that? It's unfortunate that everyone seems to believe the time to do so is at some point in the future, excepting the few who think "now" and the even fewer who think "always."
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I'm glad I am able to spread rumors in the USA (Score:1)
Oh noes! (Score:3)
Where will we get our iPhone 5 rumors now?!
I heard.... (Score:1)