Users Rage Against China's 'Great Firewall'

slugo writes with a CNN article about young professionals increasingly aware of the small part of the internet they're allowed to play in. Intelligent and internet-savvy, these users are frustrated by China's overactive concern for internet health. "Yang Zhou is no cyberdissident, but recent curbs on his Web surfing habits by China's censors have him fomenting discontent ... Yang's fury erupted a few days ago when he found he could not browse his friend's holiday snaps on Flickr.com, due to access restrictions by censors after images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre were posted on the photo-sharing Web site. "Once you've complained all you can to your friends, what more can you do? What else is there but anger and disillusionment?" Yang said after venting his anger with friends at a hot-pot restaurant in Beijing. The blocking of Flickr is the latest casualty of China's ongoing battle to control its sprawling Internet. Wikipedia and a raft of other popular Web sites, discussion boards and blogs have already fallen victim to the country's censors."

Re:And the Pope is Catholic..

[Enderandrew]

I'm not a huge expert on the subject, but I do believe that the former Yugoslavia under Marshall Tito was a Communist nation that didn't have problems with toltarianism or censorship. Their biggest problem was hatred across various ethnic lines within the nation.

Re:One Option - Learn English

[Hemogoblin]

According to this site [greatfirewallofchina.org], the english version of Wikipedia is blocked. You can test it yourself here [greatfirewallofchina.org].

Heres a sample:
"Testresults for en.wikipedia.org/wiki/main_page
Latest 51 results:
03.21.2007 blocked
03.19.2007 blocked ... etc ..."

Re:Joke

[tcbent]

I think you mean Mr Hu. They put their family names first in that part of the world.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the censor and two other journalists were fired [ifex.org].

Re:lesson for those that bash USA

[ubernostrum]

Lastly, I have not seen a single statement from the White House or any US government official requesting the ability to detail American citizens indefinitely without either charges or due process.

Jose Padilla is an American citizen who was first detained as a material witness, then deemed -- by administrative fiat, not by any due process of legal action -- an enemy combatant and transferred to military custody; when his attorney filed a habeas corpus petition, the administration fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, finally winning at that level, and was then challenged again in a different jurisdiction, where a an appeals court deemed Padilla's indefinite detention lawful. Just to be extra safe, last year's Military Commisions Act, helpfully passed just before the Republican party lost its control of Congress, then proceeded to explicitly and absolutely strip away the power of civil courts to hear habeas corpus petitions pertaining to "enemy combatant" detainees, and further stripped the jurisdiction of any civil courts to hear appeals of a military comission's decisions or constitutional challenges of the use of such commissions.

There is no bloody way that's constitutional, but Bush and the former Republican Congress did everything they could to ensure that challenges will take years at the least. Any effective challenge to a detainment would have to begin with the arduous task of getting the Military Commissions act struck down (habeas corpus is guaranteed by the Constitution, and power to hear cases arising under the Constitution is granted to the courts directly by the Constitution with no ability for Congress to take that away), a process which would likely take the rest of this decade and might not even succeed, given the current makeup of the Supreme Court.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Defeatable

[Anonymous Coward]

Not my work but I blogged it ages ago [fuggle.id.au].

Re:Internet restrictions are only a symptom

[he-sk]

Are you joking? What about the millions of construction workers that help build the big cities. They often move from construction site to construction site, live in crowded dorms and from the pennies they earn they send most of it back home. If they get paid for their work that is, because if your employer screws you in China you just have to suck it up. There's NO rule of law over there.

Just yesterday I saw a report about a recent bust of migrant workers in China that were literally held as slaves (links to stories [google.com] on Google News). Now, in the case, the Chinese police actually did the right thing, it happens rarely enough.

Re:Internet restrictions are only a symptom

[gauauu]

Young professionals have the means to leave China, even if they don't have the means to change the government. I'd suggest they get out while the getting's good.

It's harder than you think for people to leave. I worked in the IT industry in Chian for a few years, so I was around these young professionals. China makes it a HUGE hassle to get a passport, and most countries aren't very quick to give out visas to Chinese without them already having a job in that country. Which is rather hard to get.

Add to that the fact that unless they want to go to a LESS developed country, their well-paying Chinese jobs don't give them enough money to easily travel/move to an expensive country like those in Europe or North America.

Believe me, most of my coworkers would have LOVED to immigrate to the "west" (or Australia), but very few had the means to do it.

NOT informative, ignorant and misinformed

[Anonymous Coward]

"Jose Padilla is an American citizen who was first detained as a material witness, then deemed -- by administrative fiat, not by any due process of legal action"

In some cases, administrative "fiat" IS due process of legal action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order_(Unit ed_States) [wikipedia.org]

"Some orders do have the force of law when made in pursuance of certain Acts of Congress of the United States, when those acts give the President discretionary powers"

So stop pretending the two are irreconcilable. You sound like just another ignorant slashtard spewing propaganda.

Re:And the Pope is Catholic..

[bug]

Unfortunately, that is not my (very limited) experience. For example, an American-educated Chinese expatriate I knew who had been living in Virginia for several years still believed that Taiwan and Tibet both clearly belong to China, and that any talk otherwise was just insanity. Oppression can be pretty powerful if you don't know any different, and the ability and willingness to unlearn things that aren't true is not exactly mankind's greatest attribute.

Re:lesson for those that bash USA

[LynnwoodRooster]

the administration fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, finally winning at that level, and was then challenged again in a different jurisdiction, where a an appeals court deemed Padilla's indefinite detention lawful...There is no bloody way that's constitutional

Excuse me, but if the Supreme Court ruled it was lawful, the it is EXPLICITLY CONSTITUTIONAL. The fact that the Supreme Court ruled on it makes it Constitutionally correct, for that is what those 9 judges do. They weigh cases on the merits of Constitutionality. Having a second appeals also found in favor of the administration further highlights the Constitutionality of their actions.

You may not like the rulings, but inherently they grants Constitutionality to the actions you're railing against. That is the role of the judiciary, to determine the Constitutionality of laws and actions of the other two branches of government. Given that it's been found so twice - and once by the highest Court of the land - means the administration is on pretty solid ground here.