China's Alternative To GSoC Is Seeing Some Interesting Summer Open-Source Projects

[Quackdoc]

You’re living in some kind of dream world if you believe this.

Its true. but having the right to contest something and contesting it successfully are very different things. lets say media pushes false information and refuses to publish a retraction. depending in what it is. there are many courses of actions. if it causes harm you can almost always sue... to varying degrees of succses.

if the government tries to censor you. that is a
massive issue. is unconstitutional, and you can absolutely bring it to the courts to contest it

[b1twise]

] The only reason "Uighur facial recognition" is not there as a project proposal is that there are already CCP-linked corporations developing it for them.

I went searching for higher end ARM chips, and you find some really disturbing ARM products made in china. Systems totally designed for surveillance, including identity kiosks that do things like take your temperature and ID your voice. Fun stuff.

[coder]

lets say media pushes false information and refuses to publish a retraction. depending in what it is. there are many courses of actions. if it causes harm you can almost always sue... to varying degrees of succses.

This is the downside of having nearly absolute freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In the USA, people and the media can say nearly anything about public figures (such as politicians), without fear of being sued for libel.

As for the government, it has no legal recourse against people or media who publish lies about it. No way to force a retraction. It's just a big dartboard, hanging there for everyone to take shots at. And they do. Sometimes deservedly so, sometimes not. I guess the government can issue statements and either hope they get reported or just post them directly on social media, but that's really it.

It's only private individuals and companies that have any measure of legal protection against slander and libel.

[coder]

You’re living in some kind of dream world if you believe this.

Okay, try explaining where I'm wrong. Please convince us. Show us all the details of exactly how the US government directly controls the media narrative, which agencies are involved, and what legal basis it uses to do this.

If you saw all the anti-Obama coverage coming mostly from the right (but also from the left), and then all the anti-Trump coverage, you couldn't really believe the government had any control over the media. Trump reportedly bristled at this, and even tried holding a meeting with the heads of several major news organizations, but got nothing out of it.

As I said in the post above, the only thing the government can do is issue statements. It can't force any media organization to carry those statements, nor can it influence how they report them.

[oiaohm]

No, it's not. The USA has press freedom as the First Amendment of our Constitution and the government has no right to censor or insert anything into the news. The only exception is in the case of national security, however even that isn't an absolute exception. If they use national security as grounds for censoring something that's not, then media companies can challenge it in court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States

The First Amendment protects against censorship imposed by law, but does not protect against corporate censorship, the restraint of speech of spokespersons, employees, or business associates by threatening monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace.

Unfortunately there is a horrible loop hole to the First Amendment. USA government cannot make a law against free speech but USA government can make a condition on your business/broadcast... license that you censor your content. So even if a media company wins it court to publish something that was censored on national security grounds they can still be massively punished if they are a USA firm by having the legal documents they need to-do business removed from them. There is a difference between individual censorship, legal censorship and corporate censorship. Yes a government like china can do both legal and corporate censorship. USA government uses corporate censorship a lot this is simpler to hide from the public.

Like it or not governments censoring lots stuff is the normal even for places like the USA. Some of this censorship is need to protect population from being harmed by miss information. Censorship is one of those really hard things to get right. Too much censorship is bad and too little censorship is bad as well the just right balance is very hard to find.

Assuming there actually is bias, you don't defeat bias by countering with disinformation. You defeat it through accurate reporting and good journalism. That's the only way people will trust you.

This is true. But a lot of cases having a third party do good and accurate reporting/journalism by giving them more access to valid information is better at countering disinformation particularly when you are currently not highly trusted.

[coder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censor..._United_States
The First Amendment protects against censorship imposed by law, but does not protect against corporate censorship, the restraint of speech of spokespersons, employees, or business associates by threatening monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace.

Yes. The US Constitution focuses on the relationship between the government and the people. Consequently, the First Amendment doesn't protect what individuals can say in a private forum, nor does the Fourth Amendment protect people from surveillance by each other or by corporate entities.

One can debate whether that's a flaw in the Constitution or whether the regular legislative process should be adequate to deal with such matters, although it's hard to argue the latter has been doing a very good job of it. It's a worthwhile discussion to have, but I'm not really wanting to get onto a yet another tangent, here.

[oiaohm]

Yes. The US Constitution focuses on the relationship between the government and the people. Consequently, the First Amendment doesn't protect what individuals can say in a private forum, nor does the Fourth Amendment protect people from surveillance by each other or by corporate entities.

One can debate whether that's a flaw in the Constitution or whether the regular legislative process should be adequate to deal with such matters, although it's hard to argue the latter has been doing a very good job of it. It's a worthwhile discussion to have, but I'm not really wanting to get onto a yet another tangent, here.

Its just important to keep in mind. Because that flaw means that all the censorship in china in theory could implemented in the USA using different means. USA government does have the right to censor the news by indirect means. "no right to censor or insert anything into the news." this is wrong unfortunately. USA government can threaten companies with the effects to business license and so on if they do not censor what the usa government wants they will lose them and can also threaten them the same ways if they don't insert what the usa government wants.

This kind of explains why the USA government does not own their own Public Media firm. If the USA government owned its own Public Media firm they would not be able to indirectly censor by cooperation means. This is why I don't always see government sponsored media as a bad thing.

The horrible reality is the USA define of a "private forum". Please note youtube was ruled not a "public forum" the reality is all commercial newspapers and tv and radio in the USA are also not a "public forum". The area people in the USA are legally entitled to the first amendment is quite small.

This is problem USA and China basically can almost restrict free speech the same amount if they want to. So what happening in China could happen just as simply in the USA using different means. Most countries the press could legally be heavily restricted at any time. Due to this it does not pay to think we have this bit in our laws we are fine when there are other ways in the laws to-do censorship. Think about it a TV/Radio station without broadcast license of some form is dead. Newpapers in print form need money and the like to buy paper and ink. Datacentres normally need money to pay for power.... Corporate censorship is a very powerful weapon a government can use while claiming not to censor. The lack of government owned media in the USA is in fact problem as this does result in basically all media in the USA being able to be controlled by corporate censorship. Please note corporate censorship does not have to be just the government it can be corporation to corporation.

Government owned media makes up part of a balanced media landscape USA is very miss balanced in the corporate media direction. China is very miss balanced in the government owned media direction. Both have issues with censorship. I don't think I can find developed country in the world that does not have some form of censorship problem.

[t.s.]

unfortunately very few relevant comments

Yep. Too much racists here. It's astounding how, rather than speak about the pluses and minuses of these China backed programme, they choose to attack the CCP with weak facts. Hopeless people. When their brainwasher 'attack' CCP for their political gain (and times again proved that when it's advantageous, those guys will cooperate with said party--CCP), these brainwashed sheep still goes on and on attacking.

Well, I know better cause my countries have the same kind politicians, and same sheep people like these. EQ too low. pity.

[coder]

Yep. Too much racists here.
...
they choose to attack the CCP with weak facts.

Maybe I missed them, but I haven't seen any racist comments in this thread. I personally have Chinese and Taiwanese coworkers, friends, and acquaintances. Don't confuse opposition to a political system with opposition to a race or ethnicity.

It's astounding how, rather than speak about the pluses and minuses of these China backed programme,

I didn't take us there, but when I see disinformation I'm not about to let it go unanswered.

Of course, given China's competitive posture and other aspects that have been mentioned, it's utterly unsurprising that the discussion gets derailed.

When their brainwasher 'attack' CCP for their political gain (and times again proved that when it's advantageous, those guys will cooperate with said party--CCP), these brainwashed sheep still goes on and on attacking.

Certain politicians attack China for political gain. I will grant you that. However, that's not to say their criticisms are without justification.

If China wants to lower the temperature around its activities in the international domain, then it needs to evolve its behavior from that of a 19th century power to that of a 21st century power. Specifically, that means respecting such things as:

• free & open competition
• intellectual property
• human rights
• sovereignty of other nations and their citizens

And from the last point, I also mean it's not China's place to censor critics in other nations. Again, the way to silence these voices is by changing its behavior -- not through blackmail and propaganda.

my countries have the same kind politicians,

Instead of focusing on politicians, how about focusing on the facts? Maybe check some sources not biased towards China's point of view?

[wangling]

China uses Uyghur forced labour to program!